I’ve got a revolutionary new way to test if your community is actually a community. Or if it’s just a gathering of people. (This only words for IRL events for now, but I wonder if there’s a virtual equivalent?)
🚽 Here it is: how clean is your bathroom at the end of the night?
Sounds silly, I know!!
But I had this revelation at the end of our last Soapbox Seattle event at the end of the night. We have 27 people on average attend our 3-hour gatherings. We give people food and drinks. There are definitely a good amount of bathroom uses. At the end of the night, when I went to do my own bathroom time…
The toilet seat was NOT GROSS! In fact, I fully sat my butt on it. I can’t remember the last time I didn’t hover-pee in a public bathroom. The only time I DON’T hover-pee is my house… or my friends’ houses.
Because in a “trusted” bathroom, you don’t pee on the seat!! Or make a mess that you then don’t clean up!! (Well, many men have been socialized to not clean up their messes, but most men that live with others have gotten with the program because they have to, right?)
In a community, we belong to each other. We are responsible for each other. And that means we do not consider spaces to be “someone else’s problem.”
I went to a coworking event the same day as the Soapbox event I mentioned. It was at one of those corporatey office spaces and it seemed like no one really knew each other. It wasn’t buzzy and warm. AND THE BATHROOMS WERE SO GROSS.
I notice too that sometimes more remote parks/hiking trails have WAY nicer bathrooms than popular ones. There’s a strong culture of Leave No Trace. People truly see themselves as part of a community of humans who care about the outdoors.
So anyway, that’s The Bathroom Test. What do you think about it? Does it hold up in your experience? Is it true? false? weird? All of the above?