Conversations with Complete Strangers

I've always been sort of fascinated by the prospect of random conversation, and the appropriate times in which it one should strike up some banter with a total and complete stranger. It seems like it's sort of a lost art among the people in my generation--especially the men--and I've always wondered why. I guess it's because, as a rule, men are more private and quiet beings. I don't think it's too far of a stretch to say that the typical male is not as talkative as your run-of-the-mill female. We just basically mind our own business and do our own thing, and if we don't like somebody, we don't put on a false air that leads them to believe we do. We just put our heads down and go about our way (or some of us beat the shit out of people, but more on that later). Even females, I've noticed, don't just strike up conversation with other broads right off the bat as much as they used to. (I actually don't know if this is true at all, but I always like to include women in this whole thing, because maybe they can somehow emphasize with what I'm about to talk about.)

I've found, though, the one place in the world where men seem to be absolutely ready to speak to whoever the fuck may be standing next to them: at a urinal stall in a public restroom. I do not know what the reason for this is, and I can't even begin to guess at it, but it's true. Ask any male who isn't agoraphobic, and they'll tell you.

Recently, I have found that the random conversation between strangers seems to be elevated to a whole new level in the restrooms of a bar. I don't even need to explain the reasons for this, because they're rather obvious.

I'm pretty much a rookie as far as bars are concerned, since I've only been 21 for half of a year and rarely go to them when I'm at school. But, last week when I went to the bar for the first time since arriving home for a few weeks of the summer, I finally discovered that people really love to jabber in the pisser at a bar.

I walked into the restroom at a local bar I was at with a few of my friends, and immediately saw one man talking to another while they had their cocks out and were hanging a wire into the urinal.

"Yeah, man, if those mother fuckers don't shut up I'll show 'em what a real hockey fight is all about," the one dude said to the other, and I immediately started to chuckle a little bit. Firstly, because I was drunk. Secondly, because we were in a bar and you can't really have a fight on ice in most bars, which would've made it pretty difficult for this man to have shown anyone in the bar what a real hockey fight was like. And thirdly, because I'd seen this man the last time I'd been at this particular bar. He was drunk, and kept thinking that my friends and I had stolen a pitcher of beer he had set down on the table we were sitting at (probably because we had).

The second guy obviously didn't know the man, and wasn't nearly as drunk as he was, because he just said, "Yeah..." then zipped up and walked away. I'm pretty sure he pinched off mid-stream, but I'm not exactly an expert. But, since I'm always looking for a good laugh, and since I was pretty intoxicated by that point (it was my first night of drinking since I'd had surgery a couple of weeks prior, so I was what they like to call "three sheets to the wind"), I decided right then and there that for the rest of the evening I would attempt to strike up a conversation with every person that lined up at the urinal next to me. (I feel it should be stated right now that I have the world's smallest bladder. It is a source of constant frustration to me, and one of the crosses I bare. When I get drunk, I piss literally every 15 minutes sometimes).

I was under the impression that I'd just had the greatest idea of my young life--which, in hindsight, was untrue, because one time I was a kissing booth for Halloween, and that was the best idea I've ever had--and I decided to test it out that moment when I got my shot at the urinal. My brother was standing next to me, and I like to fuck with him a lot.

So it was a nice start.

"Hey man," I said. "How's _________ (insert name of woman that equals next socially crippling mistake) doing these days? Did my 'save your date' get lost in the mail, or are you guys on the rocks?"

"Shut up, dude."

"No, really, I'm interested. What's it like doing charity work? Does banging her count as a tax writeoff?"

My brother started laughing then, and I was satisfied that my first go at urinal talk had gone well. I didn't think about how my brother has known me my entire life, and doesn't really take offense to me saying shit like that to him. My brother is not everyone else, that's for damn sure, and I was about to find out.

Less than half an hour later, I went back into the bathroom, and ended up with another kid that had graduated from my high school. I didn't know then, and still do not know now, what his name is, or exactly how old he is, or basically anything at all about him, but he does know a hell of a lot of fake information about my friend Jordan.

Jordan has been one of my best friends for years, and I remember when we were younger children people used to say that we looked alike. His older sister even used to call us twins, but I never really saw the resemblance. But, as I sauntered up to the urinal and tried to sift through the drunken cobwebs of my ideas to find the perfect random icebreaker, this kid started the conversation.

"Jordan!" he yelled, with a great deal of excitement. I turned and glanced behind me, to see if my friend had magically appeared, but then realized that he was actually in Virginia at the time. "How's it going, man? I saw your game on ESPN a while back!"

I guess now is the time for me to tell you that my friend Jordan plays football for a university, and that he won a national championship with them in a game that was televised on ESPN in late 2008.

I thought that maybe I should correct this guy, and let him know that I wasn't my friend Jordan, but if he was going to make urinal talk this easy and ridiculous for me, I couldn't just let that happen.

"Oh thanks, man," I said. "I appreciate you watching, that's really cool."

(I feel as though I need to point out how often the words "man" and "dude" are incorporated in the random talk between men who are strangers. When you don't know a person's name, these two words are what you immediately fall back onto, and they are about as indispensable as your favorite Affliction t-shirt, if you're on the way to a Nickelback concert.)

"Hey, no man, really, that's fucking awesome. What have you been up to?"

So this was when I took some creative license and just talked about what I thought it might be like to be a college football player. I told him about all of the different workouts I'd been doing and stuff, and how time consuming football was. He just stood there at the urinal, looking at me and shaking his head in the affirmative, just going with whatever it was I was saying. I don't even think he was urinating anymore.

Later on in the night, this guy bought me a drink. Awesome.

Following this episode, I walked outside of the bar with one of my friends to consume a water bottle of fruit-flavored vodka that he'd brought as a reinforcement for the night. Then, we ventured back into the bar, and I continued my continuous flow of frequent urination.

The next man I pissed beside was visibly a hick--a visibly large one, at that--and had I been sober, I'd immediately have been struck with trepidation at the prospect of saying something he'd find offensive.

But, I wasn't, and decided to be antagonistic. The only thing I had to do then was decide between saying something about either the potential legalization of gay marriage or Nascar. Or gay people getting married at a Nascar race.

"Dale Jr. fucking sucks," I said, and spit into the urinal.

"Yeah, I know, I like Tony Stewart," he said, and zipped up and walked away.

That plan obviously backfired, but it's probably for the best, because I could've ended up with my ass kicked in the least damaging scenario. In the most damaging scenario, I could've woken up at a secretive KKK death camp in the backwoods of western Pennsylvania, where I would be held hostage for years until I was brain-washed. And all they would have to eat was raw venison and Bush's baked beans.

(Speaking of baked beans, remember those commercials when the talking dog had the recipe? That shit was funny. Sometimes commercials with speaking animals just really tickle my fancy. Like that one with the penguin that walked around with beer and said "doo-bee-doo-bee-doo." That was a classic.)

My last attempt at urinal talk was probably my best, but it was planned. All of my friends wanted to leave, and I told them I wanted to have one last drink. So, they all had one, too. The real reason I wanted to stay was to wait for the man who wanted to hockey fight to go to the restroom one last time, so I could follow him and try to piss him off.

He went, and I followed. I got to the urinal and proceeded to drop my trousers the entire way down, Michael Buesink style. My belt hit the ground with a clank, and I heaved out a sigh of relief. I then took the quarter I'd been holding in my hand, and dropped it into the urinal.

It landed with a splash and I said, "Whew, that is cold! I really have to remember to hang onto it."

The dude laughed, kind of drunkenly, and then slurred out, "Ha, shut the fuck up. I bet mine is bigger."

I laughed and said, "Well, maybe it is, but I don't think we'll ever know. Like, what the fuck do you want to do, compare or something? Because I'm not into that, man. My locker room days are behind me."

"No way, man, you callin' me a fag?"

"No, not at all."

"I'll fuck you up."

"That's what your mother said last night, minus the 'up.'"

He took his hand off of his cock and tried to take a halphhazard swing at me, and I ducked below the piece of plastic separating the urinals. I quickly pulled my pants up while he started yelling about how he was pissing all over himself. I slapped him on his ass and then ran out of the door, yelling, "Ahhhhh that dude in there just tried to look at my dick! Let's get out of here!"

So, we left, and I don't think I'll be going back to that bar in the near future.

The moral of the story? Communication between strangers can be fun. And mom jokes to people you don't know have a very powerful effect.