I will preface this post by saying that my observations may not be typical of any university, in this country or indeed worldwide, however there may be parallels between this report and your own experiences in similar situations or institutions.

Firstly, a little background. I've been a member of TRP for many years now, although this is only my second post using this account in over 2 years. I have recently completed a Masters in Mechanical Engineering, and I have often found myself in the University library at all times of day when completing work, due to societies and other social activities. The library in question is aimed at the female-dominated courses, such as criminology, psychology etc. There is another library for STEM subjects, but this one is closer to where I live, and so I go there. During my time in learning about the various topics and components of TRP theory, I have been able to observe many behaviours of people that otherwise I would not have paid attention to. This report will summarise the findings I have observed over the past few years. Firstly I will take you through an average day.

Ideally, I aim to be seated and working at 9am most days, firstly to ensure I get a place to sit, and also to get a lot done before lots of people arrive and ruin the peace and quiet. At this time in the morning, the library is quiet, with very few people in. There tends to be more men in at this time, with roughly a 70-30 split, however all people are working quietly and there is minimal distraction.

This quiet-time lasts for most of the morning, with a slow trickle of people arriving constantly up to around noon. In this time, the majority of arrivals are still men, sometimes in small groups of 3-4. Sometimes these people put on a sports game while they work, but they still work and are mostly focused. Of the women that are present, they still continue to work, but spend some time looking round the room at men they find attractive, especially when they get up to use the toilet. Men seem to do this too, but with less frequency.

After noon, it really starts to pick up, with larger groups of girls coming all at once and taking lots of seats together. Some men are also arriving but they tend to be alone, or with one other person. The groups of girls are often a lot louder, and bring lots of food with them to have through the afternoon. Whilst the men generally work, however with small distractions from a sports game or their phone, the women, especially the groups of girls tend to get no work done at all. There is always lots of gossiping and general chat between them, more often than not they have open an online clothes shop or Tinder and browse it with their friends. Even the girls who are sat alone have online shopping open, and they are browsing for a long period of time. In all this time, women who are alone still look around at everyone around them, to size up the men and to judge other women. The groups of women also do this, however they also whisper to their friends at the same time. It should come as little surprise to most people here that this is the case. The men who arrived alone still continuously work, with little/no distractions, however the men who are in slightly larger groups tend to drift off and talk about unrelated subjects for a short while before returning to work. They generally are not interested in looking at the women around, which I found surprising, I never overheard any chatter between them about any attractive women in the vicinity. I also never observed men using Tinder in the library, but that does not mean it doesn't happen. Furthermore, groups of men who come together will not always go together to get food, one or two may leave at a time, instead of the whole group.

The afternoon continues on a similar trend, with men working alone or in small groups, and the women spending less and less time working, especially in large groups. The larger groups often tend to get coffee or food all together at multiple parts of the day, sometimes going 2-3 times per hour. When it reaches around 6pm a lot of the women start to leave, mostly the large groups who arrived in the early afternoon. I often overhear the women expressing how tired they are despite doing little work. Some of the men who have been around since 9am also start to leave, with the groups of men staying, but getting more distracted. The women who arrived alone also tend to leave around this time.

At late evening, the library is 80-20 men, who still work quietly. The remaining women at this point have come alone, as they will never stay behind while their group leaves, and tend to work effectively and without distraction. At this point it is unsurprising that this is the case, as the library is sparse.

Overall, in the past few years there has been a large increase in the number of students at the university, and so larger groups of women tend to come in earlier, but with the same results in terms of work rate. Women can't escape their group-think mentality, and always must do things with the entire group, where men are happy to go alone. In addition, men tend to have a higher work rate and work longer than women on average.

TLDR: Men often work alone, or in small groups with a higher work rate and longer hours. Women who come alone work well in the morning, but drift into online shopping and Tinder in the afternoon, and large groups of women get little/no work done at all during the day and waste lots of time gossiping, going for coffee and using Tinder.

This is a typical day for the library that I have witnessed over the past few years, and I am keen to hear your experiences too.