What's The Fascination Gentleman ?

You've heard me chat about my book club on several occasions - I love book club for a number of reasons (excuse to drink wine, gossip and snack - isn't that enough?) but the one thing that I really love about it is the interesting conversation topics it brings up. Take last week's meeting it ranged from the miracle of birth, to an in-depth foray into circumcision (interesting) to the topic that really struck a chord. Specifically, men and their propensity to spend extreme amounts of time in the bathroom doing all sorts of activities. While I profess that I am not quite sure how we got onto this topic, I assure you, it was one of interest and amazement to our group. After a brief comparison of tales we all learned that the respective men in our lives love to camp out on the john. Reading, emailing, drinking coffee, talking on the phone - the variety of tasks they can engage in while otherwise indisposed was quite impressive. However, what really got us was the duration of their little vacation to the porcelain throne. Twenty, thirty, forty-five minutes - all times that have been clocked in various bathroom marathons around the northside of Chicago.
Why ????
We could not fathom what is pleasurable about hanging out in there for so long? Truly, it's puzzling. It's not the most comfortable seat in the house, there are definitely better smells in kitchen, there's no tv in there (at least to my knowledge) so why, oh why, is this such an appealing spot for the male gender to hunker down and camp out for some quality alone time.
Now I love to hang out in the bathroom as much as anyone else, but in front of the mirror primping, not sipping my latte and reading The Times, and to call a girlfriend for a little chat while I let it lie - unheard of!
So again, and quite unintended, I have unearthed yet another example of why we are really the most reasonable, rational sex. Are my girlfriends and I are missing some great meaning of life that lurks in the bano? What drives those with the Y chromosome into this tiled haven? I can find no logical reason for it!