I've just returned from two weeks on a beach in southern Europe, where a curious gender divide manifested itself. While the women of the party fought off an attack of melancholy because they were missing out on a domestic heatwave, any men in the vicinity scratched their heads.
"Why would you care what's happening somewhere else?" they asked. "We're here." Why FOMOOH (Fear of Missing Out on Heat) isn't an equal opportunity regret is indeed a mystery, but in the event it mattered not. A far greater liberation awaited us.
Even the most high-minded of readers will be aware of the seasonal phenomenon that triggers a creeping paranoia in many women and some men, resist it though they know they should. It involves some combination of the words "beach," "body," "bikini' and "ready," and is often accompanied by photographs, either of a preternaturally perfect quasi-human frolicking through the surf or, conversely, of someone all too obviously human, with their lumps, bumps and sundry other physical imperfections circled in red lest we should be in danger of failing to notice them. Impossible eating regimes may feature and, perhaps worst of all, pre-holiday "cheats."
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