Guys my age can’t stop comparing the size of their ferns and fiddle-leaf figs

Guys my age can’t stop comparing the size of their ferns and fiddle-leaf figs — and I only wish I meant that as an innuendo.  

Over the past nine months, every twenty-something male I know seems to have acquired a houseplant, cheerfully drifting through their flatshare potting aspidistras, while the world around them imploded. What they once spent on weed, they now spend on weedkiller, rising early on Sunday morning to amble down Columbia Road and to IKEA.  

It’s quite endearing, I suppose. One friend’s boyfriend named all eight of his new houseplants (albeit after his exes, given they’re prickly cactuses). Another friend sends me an anxious Whatsapp every few days about his 2cm-tall rubber plant, Quentin the fifth (Quentins I-IV died because he didn’t water them). It feels rich to fret over topsoil given the boy barely uses deodorant — but then a lot of my friends seem to complain of boyfriends who spend more time watering their plants than in the shower.

Women might talk to deal with their feelings during Covid, but men tend to their succulents — and to be honest, it seems to have worked pretty well. With the exception of during the second wave last month, when one friend panicked he’d passed Covid onto his aloe vera — it turned out the plant was just shedding leaves for winter.

While most men are out and proud  in their embrace of foliage, a few still feel emasculated by their dirty secret. To address this, retailers market their flora as “manly plants”. A guy my friend’s dating apparently excuses his hanging baskets by saying they’re a way to make use of the ropes and hooks he had lying around from pre-lockdown bondage sessions.  

I’m not sure why planting peace lilies is any less  “girly” than, say, knitting — but ultimately men feel safe in the knowledge that their houseplant hobby can be filed under “gardening”, alongside similar pursuits such as tree-felling and chopping firewood. In bygone wars men manifested their “manliness” by protecting women and children, so during Covid guys figure they can make do by protecting £3 plants from Waitrose.

Although I suspect their aims may be less noble — as one mate told me, keeping houseplants alive is an easy way of signalling to the opposite sex that you “have your shit together”. Flatscreen TVs might once have been a babe magnet, but guys know that the woke women of 2020 are far more likely to sleep with a guy who has a eucalyptus.

As of yesterday, women giving birth will once again be allowed partners from the time they enter the labour ward, in spite of Covid. It might not end well for everyone — I  was reminded of that old adage that for men, witnessing childbirth is like  watching your favourite pub burn down.  

But mostly, it comes as a relief. I’ve heard too many stories of untold agony alone,  of finding out your baby has a hole in its heart without anyone to hold your hand. Some women reported spending 48 hours alone during induction. Amid the pandemic, partners have been treated as “visitors” rather than half the reason the event was taking place. Imagine a wedding without  the bride. I’ve never been sure about having kids, but at least now I’m not terrified that I’d have to undergo the process alone.