making the choice.

i've noticed this when going into busy public bathrooms:

when several stalls become free at once, one has a choice to make: which stall will i use?

there are, at times, the usual "obvious" reasons one might choose or pass over a stall in a public bathroom. the toilet may still have something in it, there might be water all over the floor, no toilet paper, a broken lock, a not-so-desirable smell. but then there is also the question, "who was in that stall before you?"

i think there is a minor, conscious decision we make when we choose bathroom stalls. as long as we don't have to pee really, really badly, we would rather use stalls after people who are clean-looking and moderately attractive. we have no other option but to use public toilets along with people whom we do not know, and so we make these choices based on "cleanliness criteria" that in reality may have nothing to do with the hygiene of the person who peed before us.

we are a species whose members delude themselves so that they can sleep at night.