Dear Mary… | 16 June 2007

Q. My wife has always had a wide network of friends, many of whom she makes contact with each day as they bring her up to date with how things are going in their lives. She is a good listener and always sees the point of things. She very much enjoys being abreast of all gossip as it ‘breaks’. This would be fine but she is now on the telephone for, I estimate, around four hours a day, two of them with an earpiece while she is doing the school run. I would not mind if the emotional traffic were two-way but it always seems to be my wife who is consoling or congratulating some interlocutor and I never hear the favour being returned. She has turned into a kind of unpaid counsellor to some of these bores who appear to be addicted to keeping her informed of every minor development in their day.