Fastidious, moi?

It's often said that oldies are more fastidious than the young, constantly complaining about this, that and the other thing.

I don't think that's true at all. Children are just as fastidious as the old, they simply fuss about different things.

They want a certain brand of trainers, or there's half a dozen foods they refuse to eat, or they hate certain colours, or their hair has got to be just so. Children can be so fussy over so many things that their parents despair.

In fact I have the impression kids are getting more fastidious by the day. They seem even more demanding and even keener to keep up with what their friends are doing and wearing and enthusing about. Or is that a mistaken impression?

Certainly when I was a kid I don't remember being especially demanding about anything at all. Most of the time I just did what my parents expected me to do. I ate what was put in front of me and I wore what my mother bought for me and I was polite and adaptable. My docility seems a bit pathetic by today's standards but I didn't find it abnormal at the time.

My personal fastidiousness is mainly centred on cleanliness and tidiness. I couldn't stand a house that was filthy dirty or full of clutter. Luckily Jenny is the same. A girlfriend and I once shared a flat with people who seemed oblivious to the increasing grubbiness and disorder and did nothing about it. After several exasperating weeks, we moved out.

Of course nobody likes to be described as fastidious. No, no, we just have our standards and we stick to them.

Marriage wreckers

I was revisiting a long-ago post on why marriages collapse. It can happen very easily. All it takes is a total difference of opinion about some pattern of behaviour. What seems quite normal to one of you is baffling and infuriating to the other. Is it about sex? Money? Housework? Politics? Violence? Weirdness?

With Jenny and I, I think the one thing that would absolutely drive us apart is sexism. Jenny has always been a passionate feminist who expects me to do my fair share of the household tasks and treat her with respect and consideration.

If I suddenly became the stereotype bloke, sprawled on the sofa watching Match of the Day and clutching a bottle of beer, while she scuttled round the house with the hoover and changed the bed linen, she wouldn't put up with that for long. I'd be packing my bags and moving out.

Of course there are some strong runners-up as marriage wreckers. Like politics. Jenny and I are both ardent socialists, but if one of us suddenly became a rabid right-winger, banging on about dangerous vaccines and imaginary viruses, that would be pretty terminal.

Like domestic order. We're both minor neat-freaks, wanting everything in its place and a place for everything. If one of us was always messy, never clearing anything up and leaving a trail of clothing and chocolate wrappers and dirty mugs everywhere they went, the other would be driven totally mad.

Like weirdness. We both have our peculiar habits and opinions, but they're all pretty benign - nothing disturbing enough to horrify the other. Nothing to justify a sudden moonlight flit.

And there's the very obvious contender - one of us having an affair. As it happens, neither of us has bowed to temptation, though we may have toyed with the idea on occasion, when someone utterly delicious caught our eye. But apart from anything else, deceit and subterfuge aren't in my nature.

Anyway, Jenny needn't worry too much about an outbreak of sexism.

Match of the Day? I'd rather pluck out my eyeballs.

Scruffy but cosy

I was reading about a woman who slowly ditched the idea that her house had to be pristine when she had visitors. Once she would have spent days deep-cleaning the house in preparation, but nowadays she doesn't care how scruffy the place is, because she knows it's the company and conversation that's important and not the state of her house.

If her visitors are put off by the scruffiness, then they're not the sort of friends she wants anyway, and they're welcome to stay away.

She refers to it as "scruffy hospitality" and says such untidiness is quite normal in other countries and other cultures. It's quite normal of course in households full of children, where keeping the house clean and tidy is virtually impossible.

I think domestic scruffiness is becoming much more routine, for several reasons. Because people are leading busier lives. Because thorough cleaning is exhausting. Because the idea of a pristine house seems increasingly artificial. And because scruffiness simply seems cosier and less inhibiting.

When Jenny and I first moved in together, we devised elaborate cleaning rotas for the flat. As the years went by, the rotas got looser and looser, and nowadays we clean on a very ad-hoc basis, either the bare minimum for visitors (a quick sweep and hoover) or a more concerted effort when the dust bunnies are multiplying.

The pristine-house habit is still common among the generation above me. I remember an aunt whose house was always immaculate, with a place for everything and everything in its place. She must have been secretly horrified when she set foot in our rather ill-kempt residence.

People used to apologise profusely for the state of their house, muttering all sorts of inventive excuses for the slightest hint of disorder. They don't bother any more. That's what their house is like, and if you object to it, that's your problem.

Do come round and look at my dust bunnies some time.