A date with Sarah-Kate; Kate’s home truths

The Ginger gets in touch with his feminine side

Ithought my Ginger was a regular Kiwi bloke, but blow me down if he hasn’t developed into a bit of a metrosexual. I was moved to notice this when I came upon him one recent night rubbing a lotion into his face.

Being a ginger, he’s no stranger to lotions, operating most days beneath a slick of SPF+ 142. But at night, the sun doesn’t shine, so I found this very odd.

Also, he went red(der) in the face when I caught him. It was a night cream, that’s why!

I don’t even use a night cream. But after applying a tiny bit of torture, it all came rushing out – he’d seen himself in the mirror and noticed for the first time a certainly flubbery chicken look to his neck. (Between you and me, it’s been there for a while. Like, a long while. I just assumed he was fine with it.)

Panicked at this “sudden” appearance of a wobbly wattle, he’d taken himself straight to the mall and bought not just one, but two creams to apply at different ends of the day in the hope of ridding himself of said goitre.

What’s more, he hadn’t scrimped – it was the fancy article.

I was even more amazed by this unlikely feat of urban male grooming because it came hot on the heels of him confessing that, for the first time ever, he’d counted his calories.

Honestly, I’ve been counting calories since I was eight – mostly to no avail! How lucky is he that it hadn’t occurred to him to do so before now?

Anyway, his meticulous calculations revealed that in a single weekend day, he’d ingested 2700 calories, much of it being beer, which he’d otherwise thought was a sports drink.

He was also shocked to find out that milk has calories. And cheese.

“You might want to drink black coffee from now on,” I counselled – although he had a better suggestion, which was to never count calories again. “Definitely a oncer,” were his exact words.

But his night and morning creams are here to stay. And he’s started to drink rosé and carries a man bag, which was forced on him by me after years of retracing our steps around the world to find his keys/sunglasses/ wallet/phone.

Under duress, he will even admit that the man bag “has merit”. He lets me put my lippy in it if we’re going out. Who knows, at this rate, he may start wearing lippy himself.

He already knows a lot about pantyhose (I send him to buy mine) and shellac vs vinyl (I talk about that a lot) and could point anyone suitably hirsute in the direction of the cheapest waxing emporium (he drives me so I don’t have to find a park).

Actually, now I come to think of it, he’s totally caught his metrosexuality off me. Although I found a chainsaw catalogue in the bathroom so we may still have a way to go.