The Only Mate
Relationships Australia found 65.7% of men name their partner as their most important relationship, against 54.6% of women. It sounds romantic. Sometimes it just means she's the only one left who picks up.
Relationships Australia found 65.7% of men name their partner as their most important relationship, against 54.6% of women. It sounds romantic. Sometimes it just means she's the only one left who picks up.
Mel had somewhere to be on Saturday night. Craig had Mel. So when she kissed him at the door in her good earrings and said don't wait up, he stood in the hallway for a minute like a dog that's heard the car leave.
Call them Craig and Mel. They're composites, a few blokes from the open chair at the barber and a bit too much of my own old form. Married eleven years. Ask Craig who his best mate is and he'll say Mel without a blink, and he'll mean it.
Ask Mel and she'll say Bec. Then she'll say Craig, quickly, because she loves him and she can see his face.
Craig ate leftover curry in front of a telly nobody was watching. Around nine he opened his phone and scrolled to a group chat called The Boys. Last message was fourteen months ago. A photo of someone's new ute and two thumbs up. One of the thumbs was his.
He typed "anyone around tomorrow" and looked at it for a while. Then he deleted it and checked what Mel had posted from the fortieth. Six women at a long table, laughing at something he'd never hear about.
This isn't just Craig. Relationships Australia asked 3,140 of us to name our most important relationship. 65.7% of men picked their partner. 54.6% of women did. The ABC was on the male friendship recession again this week. Same story. He's put everything in one account. She's spread hers around.
I'll own mine before I point at Craig. I once told a woman she was my best friend and felt very romantic saying it. What it actually meant was she was the only one who'd pick up. I'd let everyone else go quiet. Not on purpose. I just stopped ringing, and called it being settled.
Here's the bit nobody puts on a card. When she's your only mate, she's also your counsellor, your pub, your Saturday plan. That's a lot of jobs for one marriage. She never applied for most of them.
Fair go to the other side. Being someone's person is a good thing. The same report found people who picked their partner were the most satisfied of anyone. Craig isn't wrong to love his wife best.
But there's a difference between choosing one person and having one person left. Mel has Bec, the book club, her sister, a Thursday walk. When she's had a bad week there are four doors she can knock on. Craig has one, and it's usually tired.
She doesn't resent him. She'd never say it. But some nights she comes home lit up from a table he wasn't at, and he's waiting in the hallway with a full day's worth of talking, and she just wants to take her earrings off.
Craig told me this with his chin down while the clippers did the back of his neck. He wasn't sad exactly. Surprised, like he'd checked his wallet and found less than he thought.
On the way home he sent one text to the bloke with the ute. Not to the group. Just him. "Been a while. Coffee next week?"
Then he put the phone face down on the passenger seat and drove the rest of the way without looking at it.
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