Things my girlfriend and I have argued about (online version)

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If there's a disagreement in a relationship you should bring it out into the open: discuss the problem and how you both feel about it, reach an understanding — through compromise and negotiation — and thus resolve it so it will never be an issue again.

Ha! People actually say stuff like that, you know? Get paid to say stuff like that, in fact. Presumably their thinking is, 'Hey — it always works on The Cosby Show.'

Well, I have far more respect for the honest intensity of Margret's feelings than to think I could ever sing them to sleep with the shrill, monotonous voice of Reason and, for my part, I'm well aware that 'compromise' is nothing but Machiavellian shorthand for my cleaning the toilet sometimes. No, a good argument is immortal. Something to be dug up time and time again over the years. Something to be practised, embellished and refined. (What if the first two people who ever played chess said, 'Well, white won… no point ever doing this again,' eh?) Not only is this the way real life works, it's also a moral responsibility.

We have a disposable society; a society addicted to faddism, transience and waste. Do you think that couples in small, poor, sub-Saharan villages are constantly fed with new things to argue about? No television. No car. No bathroom. No .mp3 player that, yes, I do mean I "needed" it, actually — it's a removable media storage device, so I can use it for transferring important files — and it was on offer, very cheap… very cheap… "very" "cheap", OK? No, not £5 — don't be stupid; it's 128MB, flash-upgradeable and multi-file format — how could you possibly get an .mp3 player like that for £5? Yes, more than £5… yes, less than £500. No, no — oh no you don't. I'm not going to tell you whether it was more or less than that. Well, because, if I keep answering 'more than or less than' questions then eventually you'll get the exact figure, won't you? Doing that is effectively my simply telling you the price of it, and I am not going to do that because, as I've said, that is not the issue. No, it isn't. No — it isn't. Now, that's just insane — what do you mean "hiding it from" you? That's… I was not… I was simply keeping it there so it didn't get damaged, that's all… I don't know — a few weeks, maybe… I can't remember — "a few weeks", that's all I… I am not going to say whether it was more or less than that, so you can stop asking, OK? It's a removable media storage device that I bought so I can transfer important files and… like, say, drivers and work data and… well, yes, it's got nothing but Nickelback on it now — that's not the issue. God damn it! See, I knew you'd be like this, that's precisely why I… No… No, I wasn't going to say "why I hid it"… I wasn't… I wasn't… I was going to say… that's… precisely… why I love you…. See? I say I love you and you say I'm a lying git — I just can't win, can I?

No.

The couples in our small, poor, sub-Saharan villages aren't.

It's time we accepted that we are a very privileged minority, and throughout most of the world people have to adapt to their environments and recycle: in parts of Asia couples have as little as three distinct subjects to argue about per year, and yet somehow manage to row just as much as the Baltimore wife who can draw on such elaborate luxuries as 'an underlying feeling of nonspecific dissatisfaction which is somehow made all the more bitter on the tongue by the objective all-round and comprehensive good fortune of her life' and her husband who's been wondering whether he could pass it off as a joke if she explodes when he suggests they might try a threesome with this woman he's met in an AOL chat room. Thus, my friends, as a display of solidarity with those on our planet who are less fortunate than us, we are absolutely compelled to repeat arguments over and over again. If ever you are tempted to resolve a long-term disagreement, just picture your mother chiding you at meal times and remember: "There are people in Africa who'd be glad of that."

Which brief preamble brings me to the point. I know I've mentioned Margret hoarding things before, but I was tidying up the other day and I found a whole mass of receipts. Receipts that are years old — and for things for which it makes no sense at all to keep the receipts. I mean, for God's sake, there was one for the admission to Anglesey Sea Zoo in 1998. Never mind the fact that she'd brought this the well over one-hunded-and-fifty miles back to our house, never mind that — that's in the past — let's just focus on what you could possibly do with a credit card receipt slip dating back to 1998. Are you really going to telephone Anglesey Sea Zoo and say, 'Hello. Look, I've been thinking about it for six years now, and I've finally decided that the tank of rays you had wasn't really all that impressive. I'd like a refund, please… Yes, I do have the receipt, in fact.'? Gah.