There are some things which have become so firmly entrenched in normal society that we just don’t question them. We don’t necessarily like them, but we certainly don’t question them if someone happens to bring them up. They’re so well-known that countless comedy routines have drawn attention to them over the years; so much so that many of them are now clichés. That doesn’t stop people writing about them and perpetuating said clichés, though, as I’m about to do right now.
So without further ado, let me present Five Inexplicable Social Norms that the World can Really Do Without™.
The toilet seat thing
Alluded to above. Roughly 50% of the world’s population, give or take, have to take a piss standing up. Well, they don’t have to. But gentlemen who choose to urinate whilst in a seated position are generally scorned and looked upon as some sort of weirdo. For a chap, sitting is for pooing and standing is for pissing. Would the ladies out there who whinge about toilet seats being left up prefer it if said gentlemen just left it down all the time and pissed all over it instead? No? Then consider this: the seat has a hinge on it so it can be lifted up and put down. If it is in the incorrect position for one’s desired toilet activity, one need simply use one’s hand to move said seat to the correct position.
While we’re on, those toilets whose seats don’t stay up can die in a fire. Having to hold on to the toilet seat with one hand and directing one’s flow with the other often feels rather precarious and I feel that anyone who inadvertently spills in a place they shouldn’t whilst under such arduous pissing conditions should not be held responsible.
Man flu
Apparently, guys aren’t allowed to get ill any more. Whether it’s a tickly cough, some form of debilitating brain cancer, ebola or itchy scrot, it seems that everyone is quick to cry “Man flu!” at the first opportunity. The zombie apocalypse will not come from some sort of biohazard outbreak at a local lab. No, it will come from the man who caught zombie disease, went to hospital, was accused of just having “man flu” and sent on his way.
Overenthusiastic use of the word “random”
“OMG! I’m such a random person really. We went out and had a drink and it was like OMG! Random!”
No. “Random” means… well… random. Completely by chance. Out of all the possibilities that are there, everything has an equal possibility of happening. It is not “random” that you met that hot girl at The Dungeon one night, because you knew she was there. Your night out was not “so random”, because you’d planned it weeks in advance with your compadres. You are not a “random” person, because otherwise your conversations would run something along the lines of “Cabbage! 352! Cocks. Horatio! England. Belching squirrel. 976!”
Settling for second-best
This could be applied to so, so many things but I’d like to particularly refer to the world of employment. How many people do you (yes, you!) know personally who regularly bitch and moan about their job, their colleagues, how much they hate what they’re doing, how they “wish” they could do something “better” and then never do a damn thing about it? Some people don’t have a clue what it is what they want to do. To those people I say: think harder. If you are sitting in an office surrounded by other people who clearly want to slit their wrists or take far more regular toilet breaks than a normal person because they’re actually going there to cry for five minutes at a time, then you are probably in The Wrong Job.
Being unemployed has been a festival of suckitude, but I just know that if I was in that aforementioned office, while money might be coming in the way I’d be feeling would be ten times worse, because I’d feel trapped and unable to pursue the things I really do want to do. (Talking of which, I have a job interview for a job I really do want tomorrow. Wish me luck.)
Embarrassment over bettering oneself
I went out for a run today, but felt the familiar pang of anyone who is unfit going out in public to exercise: “what if anyone sees me?” This immediately jumps up to something doubly worthy of panic if you are doing some form of exercise which has the potential to hold up traffic, such as cycling along country lanes. But running! People will see you doing exercise, and they will laugh at you. Because going out and doing something about your own fitness is inexplicably somehow more shameful than just walking down the street gasping and wheezing after climbing a flight of five steps.
This whole thing also seems to apply to kids in school, many of whom seem to see success as being somehow shameful. But that, of course, is a topic I have waxed upon at great detail many times in the past.
So I know I certainly wouldn’t shed any tears if any of the above norms disappeared overnight. Perhaps they’re uniquely British things. In which case… anyone want to help me get a visa?
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Good luck with the interview. Why not take a trip to the loo once or twice to check for people with low job morale – just to be safe!
Good idea! Last time I visited there wasn’t anyone crying in the toilets, so I took that to be a good sign.
🙂 Hope you enjoyed that run – sounds like you did. Just keep chipping away, and soon enough, you’ll get there.
I was out exercising with a friend a few months back (in that summer thing that briefly happened), and was crazily, doing some press ups in a field. This was enough to provoke two (pretty normal looking) blokes walking past to take the piss. I told them to “fuck off” though, and they did, which was jolly splendid of them.
Just run, and enjoy it 🙂
I will! Thanks. Your (?) app is very good and well worth the 59p.
Ah Pete.. I’ve got to disagree over the first two. It’s actually much more hygienic to leave a toilet lid down, so regardless of the seat I’m a stickler for it being left down… otherwise why would anyone bother with a lid? We’d just have a seat.
The man flu thing is just a long running joke. It’s probably not actually fair to suggest that men whinge more than women, but until sexual equality is more of a reality it’s fair enough to let the joke stand don’t you think?
As for the exercise thing, if you run regularly then, assuming the person scoffing in your direction doesn’t, you can enjoy the satisfaction of knowing the fucker probably couldn’t catch you up.
Oh, and none of the above are anything unique to this great country.
Ahh, Ben. A fair point. Were I eating my dinner off my toilet seat, I might care a little more. But I’m not. Guess I’m just a dirty bastard. 🙂 The point was simply a tongue-in-cheek one that there are really more important things to concern oneself with. I doubt that most people who complain about the toilet seat being in the wrong position are complaining for hygiene reasons.
As for man flu, yes, it was a joke. But it’s not funny any more. Yes, you can play the sexual equality card, but there’s really no need for oneupmanship. Most (not all, but most) people these days know that if they said something similar to a female they’d get a swift kick in the cock.
We’ll see on the running thing. I certainly couldn’t outrun anyone for longer than 30 seconds at the moment!
I’m going to be the one to agree with Jedi’s toiletseat thing. It’s not unhygenic at all, unless you are casually dunking your hand into the bowl to pass the time. It’s a porcelin receptacle that stays cool and doesn’t appreciably assist the multiplication of icky-stuff. By comparison, we have way worse things on our hands (and we use those, like, all the time) on an average day.
Funny post. I share strong sympathies with a few of those.
I remember reading a shocking breakdown of the amount of poo, wee, cum, blood, snot, skin shavings, germs, bacteria and FLESH EATING VIRUSES that were on the average office computer keyboard a while back. It’s a wonder I still use a computer.