O, for a man with a useful preoccupation
‘What do you think about the Sainsbury’s parking spaces man?” inquires my husband breezily, evidently keen to start a domestic. I eye him suspiciously before lobbing it back into his court.
“I bet you think it was funny. Hilarious. A top-notch use of anyone’s time,” I mutter.
“And I think you are irrationally annoyed,” he replies. “I think it has probably triggered you to the extent you are now dredging up examples of interesting personal projects I have pursued that you deem worthless and are getting retrospectively furious at me, too.” Can you see now why I just had to marry the man? He gets me.
I was indeed irrationally annoyed about the fact that Gareth Wild, 39, from Bromley, south-east London, decided to “take on the challenge” of parking in every single bay at his nearest Sainsbury’s car park.
“For the last six years, I’ve kept a spreadsheet listing every parking spot I’ve used at the local supermarket in a bid to park in them all,” he tweeted. “This week I completed my Magnum Opus! I don’t want to make out this was too big a deal, but there was a moment of elation.”
Apparently, he has a wife. Not only that, but she was fully supportive of his endeavour, from which I would infer that he’s probably enthusiastic-butterrible at DIY, hence her fulsome encouragement to leave the house.
The truth is, I don’t understand. My husband’s intense, deeply felt fixations have always baffled me: 1920s Czech literature, Second World War Jagdpanzers, wilfully esoteric Scandinavian jazz-rock. Why are his preoccupations never anything useful? Or shared? I have occasionally dabbled – growing succulents, jam-making, Mandarin lessons – but I invariably give up, like a normal person.
An Office for National Statistics analysis of leisure time has concluded that women’s hours are taken up by housework and childcare, while their menfolk play with model railways and plot battle re-enactments.
“I suspect men’s obsessive hobby disorders are a substitute for authentic emotional engagement,” I sigh to my husband. Now he’s the one confused. “And that’s a problem because?” Says it all, bless him.