The reality of travelling with your partner

He's not just Fitzy and Wippa's newsreader or a panellist for The Morning Show, FOX Sports, and the ABC - Matt de Groot is also Be's newest columnist. He'll be taking us on a deep dive into the world of dating... from a guy's perspective.

I’m on a four-week trip with my partner around Europe (like the rest of twenty and thirty-something Australia) and it’s simply spectacular. Except for one part…

Close quarters travelling, and going to the toilet.

The anxiety around this necessary, but unsavoury event is, to put it simply, distressing.

It doesn’t matter how wonderful the storybook towns are, or the never-ending sunsets look, at stages we have both been sitting in our small hotel room or AirBnB and the reality of being a fully-functioning human has hit me.

For women, it doesn’t appear to be a problem. I’m not sure how they do it, but I’m never truly aware of what is going on in the bathroom when they go. All visits seem to last about the same amount of time and are void of any attention-grabbing characteristics.

Then there’d be the emergence of a lady with hair redone, lipstick reapplied and who’s generally better put together than when she entered.

I do not share this luxury.

Regardless of where we are staying the first thing I will notice is the proximity of the bathroom to the rest of the room, the thickness of the door, and the distance from the base of the door to the floor. And rarely is it good news.

Hotel designers seem to be going through this ‘trendy’ phase of making toilet doors out of frosted glass, and leaving about a foot of distance to the floor. What?!

Who on earth OK’d this design? Certainly no one who has ever had to rely on its protection while sharing a room with someone they’re trying to impress.

The parameters around designing a toilet door should be simple. ‘Could this double as the door for a highly-secured bank vault?’ If yes, proceed. If no, then it probably isn’t fit for its bloody job.

Now, hotels can be OK, because if you scout a bathroom in the lobby, you are sorted. “Honey, I’m just going to go down and get us a coffee? I’ll be back soon.” Just remember to actually get said coffee.

We probably all know what’s going on, but we act like we don’t and the world keeps spinning.

But we are in AirBnB’s for much of this trip, and so there are no foyers or similar get out of jail free cards. Often, it’s just a bed, a kitchenette, a underpowered iron and the bathroom - who’s door seems impractically close to the bed head.

And it’s also often the case we arrive after a lengthy journey and the first thing I want to do is go to the bathroom.

Not the kind of “Welcome to the new city” I’m trying to cultivate.

It’s not entirely the odour that concerns me most (others may disagree). I’ve come across a pre-toilet spray that you spritz into the bowl which reduces unsavoury aromas, combined with a courtesy flush and the problem is drastically reduced.

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It’s the acoustics that give me the most angst.

I’ve considered multiple masking agents, with limited success.

Turning the shower on is my preferred option. Although this tends to be impractical if not combined with actually taking a shower.

Option two is flushing the toilet as a cover. But if there are too many flushes in a short period things just seem odd.

You can try to self-regulate any noise, but this is much harder than you’d think. And the visit is so unsatisfactory you need to return soon after. And there is never a respectable response to the question, “Didn’t you just go?”

It’s all far from ideal.

Ultimately, to use a crass but relevant word - it’s shit. It really is. It’s the only part of this co-holidaying adventure that I don’t enjoy and I’m certain I’m not the only one here who agrees. But I also don’t see a way around it. So, until someone gives me the secret to how women go in such secrecy, this is just my problem to face.

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