Is there a bit of a mystery surrounding changing rooms and their setup?

It seems that the ladies changing rooms typically have "Doored" showers compared with the communal efforts over in the mens and I got to wondering why this is.

You will be disappointed to find out that neither I nor her indoors have any definitive answers on this.

Could it be some kind of personal grooming issue? It would certainly cause some degree of controversy if someone was sporting a back, sack and crack!

Would that really be noticed in the realms of the mens changing room?

On googling "changing room etiquette" or "locker room etiquette" one finds that it is a very virulent interweb topic with do's and donts for those who "fear" the changing room and its environs.

Its clear though that in the case of both sexes there are always some locker room freaks (although it should be pointed out that these peacock types seem to be more of a "Globogym" rather than an "Average Joe's" phenomenon). Although you would have to ask yourself…if there were hairdryers in the mens (or indeed ladies) changing room in irish life, would people be drying their bodies with them…and how far would they go?

This has come to mind recently as I purchased myself a chamois style "sports towel" [http://www.speedo.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Product6_10151_10202_120562_-1_42308_33314_Y_120565].

The upside of this superb invention is that you are liberated from the shackles of the daily bag routine. You no longer have to wash/dry/bring a towel in every day. The downside of this is that it is the size of a handkerchief.

So….you get out of the pool…stroll over to your bag…pick up your lime shower gel (what?!!) and your sports towel…and stroll into the shower.

Now all this is fine and dandy if you are in the showers at an unpopular time (there are 4 showers in the mens, 2 on 2 facing one another). However, when the showers are busy and there are a lot of humans doing their thing then guess who the freak is? That’s right…it’s the guy with the handkerchief sized towel and the lime shower gel.

So you remove togs, rinse them, wash yourself (thoroughly of course), only then do you really become the freak show. Why you might well ask? Well you have to dry yourself with this item in a sort of rub and sqeeze type of methodology, the chamois, you see, is ultra absorbant so you dry your hair then you wring the towel dry, you dry your muscled hairless torso, then you wring the towel dry, you get the picture (clearly you methodically move down your body from the top to prevent already dried parts of your body becoming wet due to the law of gravity).

Then of course you leave the shower area and return to your clothes, but again you just look like the freak walking around the changing room in his birthday suit (when clearly you are the one who is being the greenest, what with electrical and washing powder saving). So stop with your judging and save the planet, if you are swimming every day then buy the sports towel (available in arnotts).

Not sure how well they would go down in the ladies changing rooms…I'm sure though, that they are just as ecologically aware and friendly as us men (comments welcome).