Basic level psychology can save you from carbuncles, cracked knuckles and a huge haberdashery bill. I know that sounds unlikely, but bear with me. I’ve never been entirely sure if it’s been a bad habit or something genetic – my Dad had the same problem – but for years I never owned a pair of gloves for more than a week.
The cycle was a predictable one. Arrive, take off gloves, put gloves down, be so used to not having gloves you forget you were wearing them, say your goodbyes, leave without gloves. Repeat. (It could have been worse: Dad had a similar problem with umbrellas and trains.) I’ve tried psychometric profiling in my time, and while it was enlightening and offered fresh insights into my life and interactions, there didn’t seem to be any direct link between being an INFJ and losing your gloves twice a week.
There were alternative approaches available, of course:
- stick your hands in your pockets (but it’s a bit Boris, isn’t it?)
- only ever wear cheap gloves (and spend a month’s salary on gloves every year)
- just stay home from November to April.
A former partner tried the traditional approach to this ‘bad habit’: a nice cosy pair of woolly mittens on a long piece of elastic, threaded through the arms of my overcoat. It probably would have worked. I might even have had the grace to admit that after the two or three week sullen silence that descended at that point. But the prescription has to fit the patient – the right intervention at the right time, as they say - and I just wasn’t compatible with gloves-on-elastic-through-the-coat-sleeves. It’s astonishing how patronising a few feet of elastic can feel.
As winter was drawing in, I knew it was time for a change of tack. I was past social embarassment with my ‘problem’: fear of humiliation is no threat to a man who endured Practical Drama at university. Developing blubbery fat hands wasn’t going to be compatible with my general physique and metabolism. And being a smallish man with bony extremities, I was used to them getting cold: purple hands go rather nicely with pink ears, altough you have to choose the right scarf to pull off the look. So I tried a new approach: pride in choice of gloves, allied with the threat of severe annoyance at losing a really nice, expensive pair.
They’re sheepskin, they’re beautifully warm and soft, and the fingers are flexible enough to let me operate a pencil and soduko puzzle on a railway platform. But the best is yet to come … they’re now on their third winter. And I can shake hands with people without them wondering if I’m secretly a reptile. Result!
If only I could remember which coat I’ve left them in since Spring …
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