That's men for you: Padraig O'Morain'sguide to men's health
Back in the distant days when drinking with workmates from close-of-business on Friday until the time the pubs shut on Friday night was de rigueur, I had a colleague who never took part in this activity.
It wasn't that he didn't drink. The problem was that he was in love and he and his girlfriend wished to spend all their available time together. So while the rest of us barrelled down to the pub at half past five, he shook his head sadly at us and went off to meet the woman in his life.
In the fullness of time, they married. They went off on their honeymoon and he returned to work a couple of weeks later.
What do you think happened on the first Friday night after that?
That's right. At half past five he was hovering. We waited. Finally he broke and asked if anybody was going for a drink. Needless to say, he got a ferocious slagging but he managed to recover from it over a few pints.
Thereafter, he was a regular member of the group for our Friday night drinking sessions.
These thoughts are prompted by a piece of research just published in Scotland. In a survey of more than a thousand workers, nearly half said they put more effort into maintaining a good relationship with work colleagues than they do into their relationship with their spouse.
For instance, they are more likely to perform little kindnesses such as getting a nice cup of tea and a bikkie for a work colleague than for a spouse.
Some go for a drink with colleagues after work to avoid the whole business of children being washed and put to bed.
The findings were published by the At Home Society which was started by drinks giant Diageo - a fact not mentioned by all the media that covered the survey.
The "society's" website encourages visitors to make their evening less ordinary by savouring each other's company and "by mixing one of our classic drinks for yourself and your partner".
On a page with a big background picture of a spirits glass - a hand reaches in and stirs the ice around - it even suggests reciting your favourite poems to each other at 7.30pm while having a vodka and orange. And where are the children while this is going on? No idea, yer honour, we were too busy reciting poetry, don't you know.
I presume this is all a response by Diageo's marketing department to the shift to home drinking from pub drinking. Next time you see someone buying a bottle of vodka and stuffing it into their shopping bag you'll know they're going home to recite poetry with their partner.
With that health warning out of the way, the question arises as to what is going on if we are nicer to our colleagues - even running little messages for them - than to our spouses? And why are we apparently more keen to spend time after work with colleagues than with our spouses?
I suspect it has something to do with a sense of freedom. Some wise person whom I can't be bothered to Google once said that when two people get married they quickly learn the difference between wanting to spend all their time together and having to spend all their time together.
And between partners there is the burden of history, expectations, disappointments, arguments and all the rest of it - a burden which usually does not exist with colleagues.
Perhaps that is why some couples become quite good friends after they split up. The burden is no longer there. That, by the way, applies only to "some" people - I am definitely not suggesting that splitting up is a good way to make friends.
What I would say, though, is that if you start reciting poetry to your Significant Other at half past seven in the evening while downing a vodka and orange, you'll probably end up needing all the friends you can get - after the divorce.
Padraig O'Morain is a journalist and counsellor accredited by the Irish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy.