"I SLEPT with my best friend’s son,” announced my boyfriend casually, as if commenting on a slight dip in temperature since that morning or the increasing price of Edam.
“What?” I asked in horror, nearly dropping my laptop on the floor, forgetting for a moment my mild relief that I had taken 100 holiday snaps on a recent weekend in Stockholm and had only appeared on one of them.
“I slept with my best friend’s son,” Paul repeated calmly, though this time also jabbing a thumb in the direction of the magazine on his knee.
“What are you reading?” I demanded.
Surely not Private Eye – one of his few addictions along with salmon paste, generous tots of port and King of Shaves face lotion.
I’ve seen him dancing to Dolly Parton and caught him cleaning the oven in a pair of pink rubber gloves, yet I was still surprised to see him engrossed in a gossip mag of the sort that regularly splashes shock headlines like “My mum ran off with my pet rabbit” or “I fell in love with my tax inspector” across its front cover.
Although these periodicals are clearly aimed at women – the incessant turnip and Spam drop a dress size diets testify to that – I am convinced they are more often coveted by men.
Evidence to support this hypothesis is currently stacking up.
EXHIBIT A: Copies of the last three editions of Grazia, belonging to the Daily Post features editor (a woman), that have been read cover-to-cover by a male page-designer colleague.
EXHIBIT B: A transcript of a conversion between said male colleague and another designer (a woman). It goes like this . . .
Male page-designer (looking up from a celebrity magazine): “Have you seen what this Olsen twin is wearing?”
Female designer: “Youch!”
Male designer: “It’s a vile puffball skirt that even a fairy godmother wouldn’t be seen dead in during a pantomime.
“By the way, any idea if Billie Piper is going to be rejoining Doctor Who?”
EXHIBIT C: An excerpt from The Loquitur, the official newspaper of Cabrini College, in Philadelphia, which contains the following quotes from students:
“Women's magazines are funny to me, but also knowledgeable. I never knew women think and worry about dates, guys, style and make-up. I see how my girlfriend does her lip gloss now. ”
“By reading women's magazines, I can learn a little more about women.
“I like men’s magazines because they cover the topics I am interested in. Women's magazines do the same, but you can learn from mixing the two.”
“Girls’ magazines don't use as many jokes as guys’ magazines. I have read articles in girls’ magazines and I still don't understand women.”
Case closed.
Mind you, this doesn’t explain why the naturally more hirsute sex is tempted to flick through the nearest copy of Heat whenever their wife/girlfriend/great-auntie has her back turned.
Surely it can’t be because there is nearly as much female nudity in women’s magazines as there are in men’s?
Maybe it is simply that they can’t resist the infinite cycle of “Brad and Angelina completely in love”, “Brad and Angelina: pistols at dawn”, “Brad and Angelina more in love than ever” stories.
Ironically, these magazines are based on the concept that there is a gap the size of Nigella Lawson’s fridge spanning the two genders, otherwise where would all the articles on “how to catch and keep a sensitive hunk”, “21 things you never knew about blokes” and “why your ‘boyf’ hasn’t noticed you’ve had your hair done” go?
Yet the one thing they do achieve, aside from a run on turnips and potted meat in the supermarket, is to show how much we have in common.
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