No two people share the same standards of hygiene and cleanliness.
Some are much more officious and neurotic about things like washing their hands and keeping their living area neat and tidy.
Others might not lose sleep over forgetting to wash their hands here and there or not immediately picking up after themselves.
One would imagine, however, that both of these groups of people would at least share the most basic standards of hygiene.
The girlfriend of Redditor ProfessionalRare3519 certainly did, until the original poster (OP) casually told her of a common occurrence in his bathroom.
An occurrence the OP’s girlfriend found anything but common.
So horrified was the OP’s girlfriend by his newly discovered habit that she stormed out of his home.
Feeling his girlfriend’s reaction wasn’t justified, the OP took to the subReddit “Am I the A**hole” (AITA), where he asked fellow Redditros:
“AITA for not telling my girlfriend that I pee in my shower?”
The OP explained why his girlfriend stormed out of his apartment in disgust:
“Let me get right to the point:”
“I 25 (M[ale]) pee in the shower.”
“I thought everyone did.”
“My whole family pees in the shower, as do all my friends.”
“I don’t pee in a shared shower like a dorm or a locker room, nor do I pee in someone else’s shower when I’m a guest in their home, but do I pee in my own shower?”
“Hell yeah.”
“So I’ve been dating my girlfriend ‘Jessica’ 25 F[emale] for several months now and she stays at my apartment at least a couple nights out of the week.”
“Things were going very well until yesterday.”
“I got home from work late, and traffic had been really slow.”
“I had to pee so badly, but I also felt sweaty and gross,s so I wanted to shower.”
‘When I got home, I was in a frenzy, but I still gave Jessica a kiss like normal.”
‘Then I immediately went to the bathroom, took my clothes off, hopped in the shower, and let the most relieving pee I’ve ever let out.”
“After that, it was smooth sailing.”
‘I did my skincare routine, changed, and began making dinner for Jessica and me.”
“Jessica came into the kitchen and asked how I was and I responded with, ‘Ya know, nothing feels better than a good ol’ pee in the shower’.”
“She started to laugh, and when she realized I wasn’t laughing she said, ‘You’re joking, right?’”
“I was like what do you mean? and she went, ‘You don’t ACTUALLY pee in the shower, do you?’”
“When I told her I did, in fact, pee in the shower, she got really upset.”
“She said it was nasty that I peed in my shower and that I should have at least told her so she would have known to wear shower shoes.”
“I told her I didn’t think it was a big deal–that EVERYONE pees in the shower– and that if she was worried about that stuff she should just bring shower shoes when she stays over at someone’s house.”
“She called me gross and insensitive as she packed up her things and left.”
“I REALLY didn’t think I was in the wrong here, but Jessica is normally super chill and down to earth about things, and we’ve never had an argument like this before.”
“Is she overreacting or am I in the wrong?”
Fellow Redditors weighed in on where they believed the OP fell in this particular situation, by declaring:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
- NAH – No A**holes Here
While the Reddit community was somewhat divided, they generally agreed that the OP was not the a**hole for telling his girlfriend that he pees in the shower.
A number of people agreed that the OP’s girlfriend overreacted and that peeing in the shower was a completely common occurrence, with some even convinced the OP’s girlfriend must have done it at least once herself:
“It’s like there are two camps that never knew the other existed.”
“I always assumed that everyone peed in the shower.”
“Now I discover that whole swaths of people think it’s just short of murder.”
“What a world!”
“NTA.”- nonameplz87654
“NTA.”
“I’m a woman, I pee in the shower sometimes.”
“It’s not a big deal.”
“I never understood why that was considered gross when menstrual blood goes down the same way, it all gets washed away, and if you wash your tub regularly there shouldn’t be any issue.”
“I don’t think it’s your responsibility to make her aware of your shower-peeing habits so she can prepare.”
“If I was taking a shower at someone else’s place, I’d give the tub a cursory scrub anyway because I’d feel like my level of cleanliness is my own responsibility.”- CrimsonKnight_004
“NTA.”
“As a plumber I can tell you it all goes to the same place.”
“As long as you’re not taking a dump and waffle stomping it down the drain (please don’t do that for a lot of reasons).”
“I don’t think it’s a big deal.”
“All sorts of more disgusting things go down drains than urine.”- UnderstandingLive520
“NTA.”
“Listen.”
“It’s a shower.”
“You don’t lie down in the shower.”
“The pee goes straight down the drain.”
“It’s not gross at all.”
“You would literally never know this was happening.”- volumeoforgottenlore
“NTA.”
“‘She said it was nasty that I peed in my shower and that I should have at least told her so she would have known to wear shower shoes’.”
“This is some magical-a** thinking, that shower floors are clean, and urine exposure would make them much dirtier than they already are.”
“Your body is covered in FILTH.”
“Unless you’re a hardcore bidet enthusiast, you’ve got literal sh*t sticking to your a**, all day long.”
“You are using the shower to remove that sh*t.”
“And it’s got nowhere to go but the floor.”- StAlvis
“‘THEY’RE ALL PIPES!!!’ – George Constanza.”
“NTA.”- discobrad85
Others, however, understood the reaction of the OP’s girlfriend, agreeing that she deserved to know much earlier that her bare feet were stepping in the same place the OP’s urine once flowed, and the OP was anything but accurate in assuming everyone peed in the shower:
“YTA for bs’ing.”
“All your friends don’t do it, and not everyone does it.”
“It’s fine that you do, it’s your home, your choice.”
“It is kinda weird how often you talk about it, though.”
“Between your family members, friends, gf, and now Reddit… that’s kind of frequent.”
“But it is kinda gross.”
“Especially if someone in your household enjoys baths (I think baths are gross too, btw).”
“I’m curious as to how often you actually properly clean/scrub your shower/floor.”- SafeBetFret
“YTA.”
“She now has to step in places where you peed.”
“If you must pee in the shower, you should not admit that to anyone, because then they will think you are disgusting.”- Tiresometruth
“So to set the scene, you are in the bathroom, you really need to pee, so your idea is to take off all your clothes, start the water in the shower, and then pee in there, instead of, just pissing in the toilet.”
“Usually, when I really need to pee, like when I wake up in the morning, I use the toilet and then take a shower.”
“Also, not everyone pees in the shower. Are there any other gross habits you haven’t told your girlfriend about that you do in your house?”
“YTA.”
“Seriously, the toilet is right there next to the shower.”- lord_buff74
“YTA.”
“Each part of the bathroom has a function, and you don’t mix functions.”
“You stand in the shower. I don’t care if you are washing, you’re standing in pee, and there is no chance all the pee is moved unless you waste liters of water afterward.”
“You stop peeing in the shower today and things are fine.”
“You pee, then shower.”
“Very easy.”
“There was a story here of a man finding out his wife poops in the shower and then stamps it down the drain.”
“That is why you stop.”
“We all have oddities, but it is better we act respectfully to others and not indulge our oddities.”
“You might date a women and doesn’t use any menstrual products and free bleeds in her own bed.”
“You might have a buddy that licks their own spoons and puts them back in the draw.”
“It’s their space, so who cares.”
“The answer, you do when you share their space.”
“We should all act civilized or keep people 100% out of our spaces.”- NamedHuman1
While a few felt that the OP hadn’t done anything wrong, his girlfriend’s reaction was also justified, as they clearly did not share standards of cleanliness:
“NAH.”
“But no, everyone does not do this.”
“I also found this pretty gross when I first experienced a partner doing it.”
“But not shower shoes level.”
“Give her a little grace. Some people don’t like to think about urine being in a place where they get clean.”- Bedquest
“NAH.”
“You’re not an AH, not everyone pees in the shower, but a lot of people do and clean it after.”
“You probably should’ve told a white lie instead of proudly proclaiming you pee in the shower.”
“Jessica isn’t an AH because it is understandable why she would be grossed out about that fact.”- DJ_Too_Supreme_AITA
The OP is in no way the only person on earth guilty of peeing in the shower. And it is, indeed, a fair argument that a lot of grime and filth, other than urine, ends up on the shower floor.
That being said, a lot of people would rather not need to think about that.
The OP’s girlfriend is one of those people.
And the OP’s declaration of his lack of inhibitions made it impossible for his girlfriend not to know what she was stepping into.
Resulting in an almost painful case of “ignorance is bliss.”