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

from the German «M' Argr et» meaning ' to be dangerously insane '

Nothing keeps a relationship on its toes so much as lively debate. Fortunate, then, that my girlfriend and I agree on absolutely nothing. At all.

Combine utter, polar disagreement on everything, ever, with the fact that I am a text-book Only Child, and she is a violent psychopath, and we're warming up. Then factor in my being English while she is German, which not only makes each one of us personally and absolutely responsible for the history, and the social and cultural mores of our respective countries, but also opens up a whole field of sub-arguments grounded in grammatical and semantic disputes and, well, just try saying anything and walking away.

Examples? Okey-dokey. We have argued about:

The way one should cut a Kiwi Fruit in half (along its length or across the middle).

Leaving the kitchen door open (three times a day that one, minimum).

The best way to hang up washing.

Those little toothpaste speckles you make when you brush your teeth in front of the mirror.

I eat two-fingered Kit-Kats like I'd eat any other chocolate bars of that size, i.e., without feeling the need to snap them into two individual fingers first. Margret accused me of doing this, 'deliberately to annoy her'.

Which way — the distances were identical — to drive round a circular bypass (this resulted in her kicking me in the head from the back seat as I drove along).

The amount of time I spend on the computer. (OK, fair enough.)

First Born's name (Jonathan). Then, when that was settled…

How to pronounce First Born's name.

Our telephone number.

Which type of iron to buy (price wasn't an issue, it was the principle , damnit).

Where to sit in the cinema. On those occasions when we a) manage to agree to go to the cinema together and, b) go to see the same film once we're there. (No, really).

Whether her cutting our son's hair comes under 'money-saving skill' or 'therapy in the making'.

Shortly after every single time Margret touches my computer, for any reason whatsoever, I have to spend twenty minutes trying to fix crashes, locked systems, data loses, jammed drives, bizarre re-configurations and things stuck in the keyboard. There then follows a free and frank exchange of views with, in my corner, 'It's your fault,' and, in hers, 'It's a curious statistical anomaly.'

Margret enters the room. The television is showing Baywatch . Margret says, 'Uh-huh, you're watching Baywatch again.' I say, 'I'm not watching, it's just on .' Repeat. For the duration of the programme.

She wants to paint the living room yellow. I have not the words.

Margret doesn't like to watch films on the TV. No, hold on — let me make sure you've got the inflection here: Margret doesn't like to watch films on the TV. She says she does, but years of bitter experience have proven that what she actually wants is to sit by me while I narrate the entire bleeding film to her . 'Who's she?', 'Why did he get shot?', 'I thought that one was on their side?', 'Is that a bomb' — 'JUST WATCH IT! IN THE NAME OF GOD, JUST WATCH IT !' The hellish mirror-image of this is when she furnishes me, deaf to my pleading, with her commentary. Chair-clawing suspense being assaulted mercilessly from behind by such interjections as, 'Hey! Look! They're the cushions we've got.', 'Isn't she the one who does that tampon advert?' and, on one famous occasion, 'Oh, I've seen this — he gets killed at the end.'

Margret thinks I'm vain because… I use a mirror when I shave. During this argument in the bathroom — our fourth most popular location for arguments, it will delight and charm you to learn — Margret proved that shaving with a mirror could only be seen as outrageous narcissism by saying, 'None of the other men I've been with,' (my, but it's all I can do to stop myself hugging her when she begins sentences like that) 'None of the other men I've been with used a mirror to shave.'

'Ha! Difficult to check up on that, isn't it? As all the other men you've been with can now only communicate by blinking their eyes!' I said. Much later. When Margret had left the house.

The TV Remote . It is only by epic self-discipline on both our parts that we don't argue about the TV Remote to the exclusion of all else. It does the TV Remote a disservice to suggest that it is only the cause of four types of argument, but space, you will understand, is limited so I must concentrate on the main ones.

1) Ownership of the TV Remote: this is signified by its being on the arm of the chair/sofa closest to you — it is more important than life itself.

2) On those blood-freezing occasions when you look up from your seat to discover that the TV Remote is still lying on top of the TV , then one of you must retrieve it; who shall it be? And how will this affect (1)?

3) Disappearance of the TV Remote. Precisely who had it last will be hotly disputed, witnesses may be called. Things can turn very nasty indeed when the person who isn't looking for it is revealed to be unknowingly sitting on it.

4) The TV Remote is a natural nomad and sometimes, may the Lord protect us, it goes missing for whole days. During these dark times, someone must actually, in an entirely literal sense, get up to change the channel; International Law decrees that this, «will not be the person who did it last» — but can this be ascertained? Without the police becoming involved?

We're staying at a German friend's flat in Berlin and he brings out the photo album, as people do when conversational desperation has set in. It's largely pictures of a holiday he went on with Margret and a few friends several years previously. And consists pretty much entirely of shots of Margret naked. 'Hah! So, here's another photo of your girlfriend nude! Good breasts, no?' I sat on the sofa for hours of this — I think I actually bit through my tongue at one point. Fortunately, though, everything turned out all right because Margret, me and one careful and considered exchange of views revealed it was, '…just ( my ) hang-up.' Great. I'm sooooo English, apparently.

See if you can spot the difference between these two statements:

(a) « Those trousers make your backside look fat.»

(b) «You're a repellently obese old hag upon whom I am compelled to heap insults and derision — depressingly far removed from the, 'stupid, squeaky, pocket-sized English women,' who make up my vast catalogue of former lovers and to whom I might as well return right now as I hate everything about you.»

Maybe the acoustics were really bad in the dining room, or something.