A few simple clicks was too much for this ‘Man from Mars’

OH, here we go, I thought irritably.

“Did you ever hear about this concept that Men are from Mars and women are from Venus?,” he inquired superciliously.

I just wasn’t in the humour for the torrent of mansplaining which in this house generally precedes either a celebration of male superiority or my husband trying to blame me for something. In this case it was the latter.

He had just purchased, online, his 83-year-old mother’s birthday present, a beautiful soft Aran sweater from the website of the handmade Irish goods shop, the Skellig Gift Store in Waterville in Co Kerry. In the wrong colour.

He had, quite thoughtfully it seemed at the time, requested that his mother browse the shop’s new online catalogue of hand-knitted cardigans, sweaters and woollen hats before she made her choice.

My job was to show her the website, let her off, and then report back on what she liked so that he could then order it in time for her birthday. This I did.

Once the present had been chosen, I told my husband what his mother would like for her birthday. Secondly, I sent him the link to the specific sweater. Finally, I wrote out, very clearly, the specific name of the sweater, the required colour and the correct size.

I wrote all of this down on a large piece of white paper which I left on the kitchen table so that he could double-check the details when he was placing the order.

“I’ll do it in a minute,” he said when I went out to his shed to tell him it was all ready for him as requested. He didn’t, as I pointed out later, have to drive all the way down to Waterville, park the car, find the Skellig shop and buy the jumper.

Next morning, I saw, in my inbox, the online confirmation of the order sent by the company. After I had shouted and sworn and stamped around a bit, my husband requested to know what the problem was. I told him.

“Well,” he retorted, I hadn’t ever mentioned that his mother had requested, like, a particular colour, he said, in tones of outrage.

After a short, sharp exchange he acknowledged that, erm, while I may have mentioned in passing what colour to order, the colour I had told him to order was definitely pink. His mother loved pink. He knew this.

I waved around the piece of paper with all the details written on it, including the fact that his mother had chosen a cream sweater.

But he decided that I had cunningly grabbed a biro and written everything down the minute I spotted the mistake to gaslight him and make him feel bad because he had supposedly failed to check details properly.

Well, good woman, that strategy wouldn’t be cutting any mustard with him!

Men were from Mars and women were from Venus and I just didn’t get the way things worked, he mansplained.

Given that he was so busy that Saturday, I should have finished the job and ordered the sweater myself. I surely understood how extremely busy he’d been all weekend in his man-shed making, by hand, a distressed wooden frame for a photograph that he had recently bought and was immensely proud of.

Me being from Venus and all, meant that I possibly didn’t understand when priorities had to be priorities.

After decades of marriage, I still didn’t seem to comprehend, he mansplained, that when a man was busy in his shed, it was not a good idea for some Woman from Venus to arrive in, pestering him about ordering jumpers and things, especially when he was blow-torching an inner frame.

But, I argued wearily, had he not initially said that he’d order the sweater himself once I had completed the necessary research?

Ah, like, that was before the blow-torching! Could I not understand the simple concept that Men are from Mars, and they should be left alone to do stuff in peace?

Women, being from Venus, should know to pick up the slack and do the shopping and so on, intuitively understanding, therefore, that it is they who should order birthday presents online on behalf of a busy Man from Mars.

Oh, right, I snarled. So it was all my fault was it?

It was up to me, was it, given that my birth location was apparently Venus, to do all the drudge work plus AOB while he spent his day in the shed blow-torching a piece of wood?

Had he even, I inquired coldly, read John Gray’s book Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus? No, he said, he just saw a quote about the Men being from Mars thing on Instagram.

“Your man’s on the ball there though.”