Colm O'Regan: One place has welcomed me recently - The Dull Men’s Club

"I haven’t brought anything to the potluck of dullness yet. I may never do. I’ll just sip my tea and read questions about why do they use commas instead of decimal points in some countries, or what people’s favourite soups are."

Sat, 16 Dec, 2023 - 02:00

Colm O'Regan

Columnist with the Irish Examiner.

I heard the theme tune from Cheers recently, for the first time in a while. And one line grabbed me. “You wanna be where you can see /our troubles are all the same”

And by troubles, I don’t mean actual troubles. I mean annoyances, or things you’ve noticed or things you take joy in that you’re not sure you can share with anyone else.

I think it’s good for men to have a place like that besides that sitcom Boston Bar. Since they made it illegal for men to stay in touch with male friends — okay, I don’t remember if they did but they MUST have, but otherwise, why would we make such a bad job of it?

There are lots of places for this. I know there’s The Men’s Shed. And I will join one day. I’m just a bit shy now and I feel like I might need to do a bit of sneaky woodworking on the sly to bring myself past the “cutting up pallets for kindling” level.

But one place has welcomed me recently: The Dull Men’s Club.

It’s on Facebook as befits my age. It’s quite the movement. There is a website and merch and two massive groups that have different claims on the one true religion of dullness. I’m with the correct one, obviously.

Regardless of heresies, the broad thrust of both is the same. People glorying in the dull, the mundane but the sneakily fascinating.

It feels comfortable. In these times of innovation and telling people on your CV that you want to work in a fast-paced and dynamic environment you want to constantly crush your goals and be interested and interesting, and there is a place to do none of that.

Sometimes you want a guy to tell a large group of people that he’s counted all the times he’s flushed a toilet in a year and what that count total is.

I haven’t brought anything to the potluck of dullness yet. I may never do. I’ll just sip my tea and read questions about why do they use commas instead of decimal points in some countries, or what people’s favourite soups are.

Debates about bins, a photo showing the official tallied distribution of sweets in a box of Quality Street. It goes on and on.

There’s enough people in it that I know there’ll be someone who appreciates my various pet opinions. I don’t necessarily need to discuss the importance of flasks with someone but it’s comforting to know that I can.

When I found myself declaring in the kitchen “We need some more clothes pegs but let’s get decent ones this time,” I knew I was ready for this life. And that I knew somewhere I could get clothes peg advice.

When my dreams stop being weird and just are admin-based. Or my nightmares include finding washing just after I’ve already closed the door and pressed start on the washing machine, I’m ready for Dull Men’s Club.

When I have one of those meals that clears out a load of leftovers in the fridge, one that empties so many plastic containers, there’s a homecoming party in the Tupperware drawer, I know there’ll be someone in the club who appreciates it.

If I feel the need to ask “What’s your favourite industrial estate/straight bit of road/petrol station/signpost design,” there’ll be an answer.

I need a place where I can talk to someone about how I like every so often to go on the football statistics website TransferMarkt and look up clubs who seem to be careful with their transfer dealings and cluck approvingly (it’s Brighton by the way).

I don’t want to go where everyone knows your name. But I like having a corner where the troubles are all the same.