by A broken heating system, a man with a van, and the dawning realisation that half of London has had the same idea
Saturday, 10am, Under Two Jumpers
The boiler went on Thursday night with a sound like a sigh. I woke on Friday to a flat at eleven degrees and a shower that ran cold in a way that felt personal.
The landlord’s agent said they would “raise a ticket.” I have had tickets raised before. I rang a plumber myself, off a card that came through the door, and said I would send the agent the bill and we could fight about it later.
He came this morning at eight. His name is Dan. He is from Walthamstow. He took the front off the boiler, looked at it for perhaps a minute, said “there’s your problem,” did something with a small part and a spanner, and put the front back on. Nine minutes. The radiators began to tick.
What He Did Not Do
I made him a tea. He drank it standing in the kitchen and we talked for a bit. And I noticed, slowly, a list of things that were not happening.
He did not tell me about his personal brand. He did not ask what I did and then explain my job to me. He did not look at his phone. He did not use the word “journey.” When I asked how long he had been doing this, he said “eighteen years,” and that was the whole answer.
He told me the boiler was an old model and would go again, and what to say to the agent to get it replaced. He told me which radiator to bleed and showed me how. Then he washed his own mug.
I stood there in two jumpers thinking: I have been on thirty dates this year and not one of those men could have done any of that, including the mug.
I Am Not the First to Notice
Of course I am not. The London Prat got there before me, as it generally does. They ran a piece a few weeks ago headed “London Women Warn ‘Blue-Collar Man Stealers’ Away, Accidentally Trigger Citywide Rush for Plumbers.”
I remember the line under it: dating apps report sudden interest in men who own spirit levels, can reset boilers and have never described themselves as thought leaders.
I read that at the time and thought it was a joke about other women. This morning, watching a man fix my heating without narrating it, I understood it was a documentary.
Why Now
I think I know what is going on, and it is not really about plumbers.
A lot of us have spent years dating men whose jobs are a kind of fog. Strategy. Growth. Partnerships. They are very busy and you cannot quite see what at. They talk about work constantly and nothing is ever finished.
A man who mends things is the opposite. The boiler was broken. Now it is not. There is a before and an after, and you can put your hand on the radiator and feel the difference. After enough evenings of fog, that is extremely appealing.
It is also, if I am honest, a fantasy. Which brings me to the awkward part.
The Awkward Part
Dan is a person, not a trend. He has, I would guess, his own opinions about being looked at across a kitchen by a woman in two jumpers who has read an article.
There is something a bit off about a load of women with office jobs deciding that tradesmen are the new thing, as though they were a restaurant. It is the same mistake the fish-holding men make about us. You have picked a type, not a human being.
And the practical skills, lovely as they are, tell you nothing about whether he is kind, or funny, or can sit through a film without talking. A man can reset a boiler and still be a nightmare. I am sure plenty are.
So I did not ask for his number. I asked for his invoice.
What I Took From It
What I actually want, I think, is not a plumber. It is what the plumber had, which any man could have if he chose. He was good at something and quiet about it. He paid attention to the thing in front of him. He left the place better than he found it.
If a man in “strategy” could manage those three, I would not care if he had never held a spanner in his life.
Dee’s View
I rang Dee. She said, “Was he fit?” I said that was not the point. She said, “So yes.” I said he had nice forearms and that I was trying to make a more serious observation about attention. She said she would be round at two to see the boiler.
Sunday
The flat is warm. I bled the radiator in the hall myself, with a key Dan left, and it hissed and then went quiet, and I felt like a woman who could cross the Atlantic alone.
I looked up the rest of the Prat’s thinking on the subject, in its British satirical news on plumbers and the wider London satirical news about dating apps. Dee says there is a whole American strand of this on Bohiney Magazine involving men with trucks.
The agent has replied about the bill. They are “looking into it.” A ticket has been raised.
I have kept Dan’s card. For the boiler. He said it would go again.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/
