Toilet Seats.

In a fit of randomness (because life works that way sometimes), let's talk about the contention of toilet seats.

I've both been a part of and seen it play out in front of my eyes time and time and time again over the years. It's usually a proxy fight for something else. It's never about the toilet seat.

The seat just happens to be an overt thing that most people can fixate on because they're currently incapable, through both socialization and teaching, of dealing with their deeper and less overt issues. As a result, they need something overt so everything they're pushing down and not dealing with can arc out on to it.

And don't think I don't name myself among you when I say 'they'. I know what I did, I know why I did it. It may have taken me years of introspection and reflection but I can name the stains of my past. If I can't, how can I possibly own them and abrogate them moving forward?

If you think it's too laborious to leave the seat in the opposite position you found it (guys put the seat down after, girls lift the seat up after), if you think this situation calls for anything other than that, you're not upset about the toilet seat, you're just fixating on it and should probably pay closer attention to the things you really are upset about.

Arguing over the direction of the toilet seat is foolish and it frustrates me that this is a cultural thing. How? How can this be a cultural thing? How can something this... this STUPID be a cultural thing?

Also, just because I like being explicit, let me state that I understand the proxy-fight happening is "You're being inconsiderate and I don't like being disregarded as a person, especially when the amount of effort it would take you is minimal and almost extremely so at that. So, if you're unwilling to put forth this minimal effort on my behalf, what else are you unwilling to do? What other barriers have you put in place that I now have to navigate around? What other situations are going to pull this same behavior in?"

I get all of that. Which is why I think arguing over the direction of the toilet is stupid. Argue over how you feel disregarded, do that. Understand that the thing you're fixating on is just one small part of what's actually producing what you're feeling, pay attention to those larger feelings and address those.

Pitching a fit about the damn toilet seat is puerile, unbecoming and foolish.

And it angers me, on a few different levels, that I was originally socialized to perform some of the patterns of behavior I'm speaking to.

It angers me that I inherited the American Male viewpoint of "Why's it such a big deal? Why do you have to get so upset about it?". The viewpoint that completely disregards the fact that someone is upset because you "don't get it" but every attempt they make to explain it is met with dismissiveness and, often, outright derision. Now, that derision might come in the form of "teasing" so that the speaker has the "Hey, I was just teasing" excuse to try to further dismiss the validity of the grievance being talked about.

In fact, it makes me seethe because this is scornful behavior and I refuse to name it anything but.

Oh, and this is usually the point where someone's probably thinking "Wow, he's blowing things way out of proportion" and to that, I'd like to say this:

Having lived it, having been brought up in it, surrounded by it and coated in it all my days, you are cross-applying the mindset to other things. You are establishing a pattern of behavior in which your dismissive mindset is the norm.

The base mindset that allows you to so freely and carelessly dismiss that any part of this could be something valid to be upset about is the issue.

Your base pattern of behavior is hurtful. The individual externalization of the toilet seat is just that, an instance of your disregard.

Yes, it's a small thing but it's a small thing that's a reminder of how you do this in other ways, in other contexts, some far more important. It's a reminder that this pattern of behavior is unconscious and unthinking, a "stamp" on every aspect of your being.

It is within your power to change, human. I would suggest you do so.