It’s Father’s Day next Sunday. Or is it Fathers’ Day? The fact that I spent some time this morning musing about the correct positioning of the apostrophe (it is, in fact, the singular possessive, even though there is an argument for both formulations) must immediately make me a candidate for membership of a global movement to which, in truth, I never saw myself aspiring – the Dull Men’s Club.
Founded in New York a little more than 40 years ago and now with a Facebook group that boasts 1.9 million members worldwide, the Dull Men’s Club promotes itself as “a place to slow down, enjoy simple, everyday things, escape the troubles of life today”.
There is, of course, something inherently paradoxical about the club’s ambition, and an irony attached to its institution. Dull people (by whatever means you classify them) will more than likely find other dull people interesting, and their particular predelictions (whether they be pictures of potholes, a debate on the optimum time to dunk a biscuit, or, yes, musings on apostrophes) will create lively discussion groups across the world.
It would be easy to poke fun at this celebration of the mundane and the trivial, but I think there is a pertinence about the growing popularity of a group which takes pride in having calm and considered conversation. Contrast that with the public realm today, where the world’s most powerful man and the world’s richest man are engaged in an open, highly personal dispute that is demeaning to them and depressing for the rest of us.
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As more insults between Donald Trump and Elon Musk are exchanged, and more playground threats are unleashed, the more one might seek the sanctuary of a space where discussion is respectful and where the volume is not cranked up. The world’s biggest democracy has been replaced by an idiocracy, and, as an antidote to the way in which modern politics is conducted, why shouldn’t dullness be celebrated? There is, surely, evermore reason to “escape the troubles of life today”.
Being dull is the very antithesis of our quick-fix, shoot-from-the-hip, antagonistic, selfie culture, in which privacy is eschewed and decorum has become obsolete. Boredom is the enemy. No one can sit still for a minute, never mind devote the time and energy to share their deliberations on the varying speeds of windscreen wipers.
I don’t include things that are genuinely dull – like the ubiquitous dinner-party conversation about the best Netflix series to watch, or the hundredth person who tells you they’re doing a podcast – but my point is that we shouldn’t ridicule the pursuit of the ordinary, or the glorification of the quotidian. In fact, we should embrace it as a bona fide approach to getting through life.
Under the terms of what is considered unexciting, I think I was probably born dull. My most treasured possessions as a child were my I-Spy books, in which you received points for everyday objects you spotted (three points for a phone box, five points for a level crossing, etc), and then, as a young adult, I became obsessed with motorway service stations (I could name them all, in both geographical and alphabetical order). I have never quite got over the renaming of Scratchwood to London Gateway and Forton to Lancaster. Where has the romance gone?
So an obsession with the minutiae of grammar is a natural progression. I once went into a post office in Cornwall to tell them they had the wrong spelling of “Stationery” on their shop sign. “E for envelopes and A for cars,” I said to the nonplussed woman at the counter.
All I am saying is that being dull, or – more accurately – being considered dull, is not in itself a bad thing. Every day we see men – and it is always men – ruining our world by their actions. How about some inaction instead, to allow the time for reflection and consideration and reason? That’s not dull at all, actually. And it would make the world an immeasurably better place.
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