Do Icelandic girls go to the bathroom together?

January 17, 2005 5:24 AM

Last year, a friend of mine went to Iceland where she spent a night bar-hopping with expat friends. While she was heading for the ladies' room, an Icelandic woman came up to her and proposed that they go together. My friend refused (she'd been hit on several times already and the atmosphere was rather hot) and later asked her friends about the incident: she was told that going to the lavatories in pairs was a local custom of Icelandic girls, but that she would have to accept the next proposal to find out what was actually going on down there. Of course, her friends may have just been pulling her leg, but she's still curious as she'll be back in Iceland this year... Any (girl, Icelandic) mefite with a clue to that mystery?
posted by elgilito to Society & Culture (11 answers total)

I'm (northern) Swedish but here's my take. When the loos have more than just a toilet, that is a sink and a mirror and all that, and there is only two (or perhaps one) of them and you 'make friends' chat a lot in line with said stranger while waiting your turn, it would be very time savingly frugal to go together even if you just met so I don't find it that odd. I have done that in Sweden with 'strangers' that I met in line. It's not that weird since you spend time chatting, washing hands and reapplying lipstick in there. This all depends on the toilet and how friendly your chat got, how drunk you are and how comfortable you feel going to the loo with another girl.
posted by dabitch at 6:11 AM on January 17, 2005

ps - if it's one loo with sink and mirror and unisex in a crowded bar where all girls need to go pretty bad, it's good form to go two at a time.
posted by dabitch at 6:13 AM on January 17, 2005

Response by poster: >ps - if it's one loo with sink and mirror and unisex in a
>crowded bar where all girls need to go pretty bad, it's good
>form to go two at a time.

Many thanks, this looks like the answer, but why is it considered "good form"? Safety from male drunks? (sorry if I'm missing something obvious).

(My only experience of Scandinavian women loos was in Denmark, where I entered one by accident (looking for the men's room in a public park). I'm not sure of what was the most surprising (for this European southerner at least): a large bunch of women going on with their various businesses in the open while chatting happily, or the fact that none of them seemed to mind the bewildered guy who had just came in, realised after passing in front of a few stalls that the place was definitely not unisex, and who was despairingly looking for the exit at the other end of the room. )
posted by elgilito at 7:13 AM on January 17, 2005

Reminds me of the time in Stockholm a couple of male, straight, Swedish friends-of-friends wanted to go to the loo together at the same time so we could "cross streams."
posted by Mo Nickels at 7:15 AM on January 17, 2005

why is it considered "good form"?

efficiency? one uses the toilet while the other does whatever strange/wonderful things women do in the bathroom (and then swap).
posted by andrew cooke at 8:07 AM on January 17, 2005

andrew beat me to it, yes it's the efficiency - one uses the mirror while the other uses the loo.
posted by dabitch at 9:41 AM on January 17, 2005

"I have done that in Sweden with 'strangers' that I met in line. It's not that weird since you spend time chatting, washing hands and reapplying lipstick in there"

Another version of the Stockholm Syndrome?
posted by sharksandwich at 10:01 AM on January 17, 2005 [1 favorite]

I was in Rekjavik in the summer and didn't have anyone ask me to go to the toilet with them. The locals are very friendly tho and wouldn't be suprised if it was just for a natter in the queue.
posted by floanna at 10:25 AM on January 17, 2005

Here in the US we women go to the potty in packs all the time, but only with our friends, not strangers. And we do have individual stalls once inside.
posted by konolia at 10:55 AM on January 17, 2005

sharksandwich, it's more like really crowded loo syndrome. The ' around strangers is meant to indicate that we didn't feel like strangers any more after standing in line for, what, 40 minutes together.
posted by dabitch at 1:28 PM on January 17, 2005

Response by poster: Thanks again! Well, I was missing something obvious. I've been around girls long enough to know about the loo queue issue, but the crowded loo syndrome is new to me. Another cultural mystery solved by the Mefi gang!
posted by elgilito at 3:40 PM on January 17, 2005