Ten Years in the UAE Ruined Me for Public Restrooms Everywhere Else

A decade in the UAE has fundamentally altered how I experience one of life’s most mundane necessities. What was once unremarkable has become a source of quiet dismay whenever I leave home.

During a recent two-week journey across Europe, the shift became impossible to ignore. I found myself interrogating companions before entering any public facility. “Is it clean? Is it spacious? Does it smell OK?” The hesitation in their responses, or worse, the resigned “it’s good enough,” would send me searching for an alternative. More often than not, I simply waited.

The comparisons were relentless and unflattering. Restaurants, cafes, shopping districts. Each bathroom became a measure against the standard I’d grown accustomed to back home. Overflowing bins, damp floors, missing soap dispensers, inadequate paper towel supplies, and doors that barely secured themselves all triggered the same reaction: a longing to be anywhere else. It is part of a broader commitment in the UAE where high levels of cleanliness and safety have become the baseline expectation.

This wasn’t always my reality. When I lived in the United States, I would have accepted any reasonably clean public toilet without question. The shift happened gradually, almost imperceptibly. After years of encountering spotless bathrooms and meticulously maintained facilities as the norm, my threshold for acceptability rose without my consciously deciding it should. Now, settling for anything less feels genuinely difficult.

Cleanliness alone doesn’t account for my newfound pickiness, though. The physical design of toilet stalls matters too. Large gaps around doors and wide spaces beneath them barely registered as noteworthy before. Now they trigger genuine discomfort. Privacy, once taken for granted, has become something I actively notice when it’s absent. Similarly, the availability of bidet hoses in UAE facilities has spoiled me to the point where their absence feels almost primitive.

I recognize the privilege embedded in this complaint. Across the world, far more serious challenges demand attention than whether a public toilet maintains spotless floors or pleasant odors. Not every building can afford spacious, modern facilities. Yet there exists a meaningful distinction between a small restroom and one that appears neglected for weeks.

The UAE excels at something beyond cleanliness: accessibility. In malls, petrol stations, beaches, and countless other locations, clean options remain readily available. Most importantly, they’re free. This stands in sharp contrast to many cities where using a public toilet requires payment.

That availability barely registers until you travel somewhere that doesn’t offer it. In 2021, a New York woman launched an Instagram account called Got2GoNYC to help residents locate free and accessible public toilets throughout the city. The account now has nearly 350,000 followers. Apps like Flush and SitOrSquat have emerged to address the same problem, mapping nearby facilities and providing user ratings on cleanliness and accessibility.

When necessity strikes, of course, pickiness becomes a luxury. You use what’s available and move forward with your day. But more than a decade in the UAE has permanently recalibrated my expectations. Every trip abroad is a reminder of just how thoroughly I’ve been spoiled. Whether I can readjust to lower standards, or whether I’d even want to, remains an open question.