Stuff

I read recently that some supermarket is going to start 'offering' (that is, charging for) a dating service whereby they set you up with a potential partner based on the contents of your respective baskets.

Personally I don't think it's the greatest idea in the world to match people with similar purchasing habits, as nothing puts a strain on a relationship quite like the bitter resentment that stems from your partner eating the last bag of quavers, while people who buy quorn should simply not be allowed to breed.

At the value end of the dating service, it's probably nothing more sophisticated than making sure that people who bulk-buy marmite are not matched with those who do not, while, supermarkets being supermarkets, there's probably a luxury end where blokes can not only be set up with women, but can be informed when they are likely to be ovulating and so time their approach to coincide with a time their prospective partner is craving sperm and hence not too picky.

Of course the idea is not new, people have been checking each other out at the check out for years. Indeed it’s quite acceptable to load your basket with the sort of stuff that would make you attractive to the opposite sex, like the keys to your villa in Italy and plenty of single portion ready meals. Try to avoid a dozen cans of cheap, super-strength cider and a DVD featuring Jeremy Clarkson though.

The service is predicated on the assumption that we are defined by what we consume and, certainly, our stuff gives a clue as to our personality. For instance, if a bloke has shelves full of action figures still in their boxes, he’s likely to be a reasonable sort and the body parts in his freezer will be neatly stacked. However, if a young woman has shelves full of My Little Pony, out of their boxes and showing clear signs of grooming, run! Use the window, not the door, it’s quicker. Never mind the drop, just do it man!

Men have, of course, been storing their tat off-site in bespoke stuff-deposit structures for many years and a glimpse into a chap’s shed is truly a glimpse into his soul, except with more homebrew and well-thumbed porn. That people now have so much stuff they don’t have a place for it all and have spent so much on it they can’t afford to move to a bigger home has not gone unnoticed by business, hence those self-storage places that have sprung up round the country, allowing couples who are moving in together a place to hide, sorry to store all his hideous furniture and framed movie posters until she can eBay the lot or simply torch the place.

By the way, if a female colleague mentions in passing that she is moving at the weekend and putting some of her stuff in storage, remarking that it’ll transform the inside of the storage unit into something resembling a typical female’s front room, don’t on Monday morning ask her if she had a hard time stuffing her ladycave at the weekend. The resulting tribunal won’t result in you being sacked, but you will be tagged as ‘insensitive’ by HR. Like I care.

I’ve always thought that if my personality was wiped as the result of some medical experiment gone wrong, conspiracy or, more likely, trying to fork a muffin out of the toaster while wearing a hat made of tin-foil, I could construct it by re-reading all the books I own, being in the lucky position of not having an original thought in my head and having cobbled together what passes for a personality from a collection of fiction and the odd reference book about cheese. Umberto Eco wrote about this process in ‘The mysterious flame of Queen Loana’ so it turns out that even that idea’s not original. I mean, I thought of it first, but just because he wrote it down he gets all the credit.

But he didn’t take it to its logical conclusion, just like putting fresh fruit in your shopping basket because you know nobody wholesome is going to strike up a conversation with you if it contained your actual dietary staples of pot noodle and mars bars, you could load your reading matter to tailor your reconstructed personality to something, well, a little less freakish.

And the place to start if your teenage diaries. That’s why I’m currently bidding on eBay for a blank Letts diary for my teen years. I’ll then be able to substitute this for my actual diary and convince myself that I was in fact a stylish, confident and happy teen, rather than the shambling collection of grease and neuroses that was actually the case. Hence, for instance, replacing this not untypical entry: ‘Saw [redacted] playing netball today. Made me feel funny. Went home, touched myself. Watched ‘Allo ‘Allo. Went to bed.’ with the rather more erudite ‘Saw [redacted] playing netball. She is beauty poise and elegance and my heart swells with yearning, a divine ache every time I see her. Went home, masturbated to the point of dehydration, watched ‘Allo ‘Allo. Went to bed’.