Boys Will Be Boys, Forever?

We went out for lunch today at our local hostelry. Pint of Old Speckled Hen and a local burger, so fresh it was still mooing. Suze had the cod and chips. We sat outside, check out the weather over here it’s fantastic. The pub’s across from the local church, so the aspect is pleasant making for a restful meal.

A group of hikers sat behind us while we were waiting for our food. Seven men all in their 30s and early 40s. Salary men by the sound of it.

They were all office workers, you could tell, making fun of the venerable and ever-pleasant barman in the pub. Because of course they are from the city, and these yokels … you get the idea, my hackles were up. I work in an office but I don’t see my self as better than anyone else who has a different lifestyle. The barman for example works 14 hour days and longer at Christmas, he’s always welcoming, no matter how tired he is and today he looked ready to drop. The Pub’s an old stone building with bad ventilation. The kitchens seem to heat the whole place through so it felt like a furnace, and still we get a cheery smile and banter when we walk in.

Anyway, the boorish blokes moved off the barman and onto village life in general. Various cringe-worthy Cornish-Cum Norfolk accents followed attempting to poke fun at the village inhabitants. I was amused mainly due to the fact we live in Yorkshire, not deepest “Mummerset”.

Anyway, on to the real point of my post. The men, I’ll use the term for want of a better one, started showing off about how they spent their respective company’s expenses when on business trips. Then they moved on to what they got up to/got away with regarding the wife and extra-marital activities.

It started “innocently” enough, with chat’s about, playing on the Play Station 2 at each other’s houses until 3am in the morning, with one (absent) member of the gang’s wife ringing up to check he was there and he was not boffing someone else. “Oh she’s jealous”, commented one of the group. “She’s reason to be”, said another. Apparently this was a regular occurrence for the absent associate. He hand a wandering eye/hands.

The conversation then degenerated into jibes about each other’s sexuality, what they’d get up to while away on business trips given half a chance and eventually the price of first class train tickets.

My question is this. Why do I.

• Not feel the need to spend masses of time away from my partner, rather than enjoying the moments I spend with her?
• Take advantage of my partner’s trust and seek out other female company?
• Spend the time in the company of men talking down to and about anyone who isn’t a city dwelling, white male Anglo-Saxon desk jockey?

I grew out of that sort of small minded, mutually back-slapping behaviour when I was a teenager.

It perplexes me that in the UK we seem to have a section of society that regards avoiding work, responsibility and commitment as a way of life. Indeed a laudable goal. Will these people ever grow up, or is this country destined to be populated by sixty year old schoolboys preoccupied with “getting away with” things until they draw a pension.

Sorry if that wasn’t very coherent in places, they really pissed me off.

And the picture? A blackbird I saw in the church across from the pub a few weeks ago. Cute huh?

Oh and SEX tomorrow I promise.