It has been a long time since I last had to write a CV and to be quite honest, I miss it as an exercise in creative fiction. There was a time when large tracts of time could be profitably used in constructing for myself a persona so dynamic, well-rounded and driven, you'd wonder why I hadn't already floated myself on the stock market and provided all my friends and relatives with great personal wealth.
I hasten to add that I never actually lied on a CV; it was more a question of exaggeration, and I refuse to believe that everybody didn't do the same. For example, if I was going for a job as a waitress, the week's work experience I did in the Bad Ass Cafe suddenly turned into a stint as manager with control over six staff and several dish washers. Helping out at a coffee morning became "extensive retail experience", and playing computer games with your brother turned into a "working knowledge of several word-processing packages".
Really it's hardly surprising that we became skilful embroiderers of the truth at the age of sixteen, as it would have been quite difficult to come up with a hefty tranche of work experience unless you had been down the mines since the age of eight. As I notched up more and more bits of employment to put down under work experience, I gradually stopped exaggerating because the thought of being quizzed at length about my supposedly comprehensive grasp of Photoshop sent shivers down my spine. However, there's one section of the CV that used to be a complete doddle and which I would now have to lie through my teeth about, and that's the part where you list your hobbies.
As a teenager, you breathed a sigh of relief when you got to this bit, hoping that future employees would be devastatingly impressed by your list of kite-flying, painting by numbers, hurling, pottery, ant-rearing, photography and survival techniques. You could list off your achievements in the under-15s five-a-side tournament, or as the troop leader in Scouts, or even rake up a Sunday School consolation prize from when you were six and thought that the disciple Zebedee had a spring instead of legs.
But as the years go by, you realise that the true challenge is finding hobbies that make you sound like a terribly impressive person, whether they're true or not. I always include painting, reading, good food and travel, which is a truly redundant list. I mean, who doesn't like good food and travel, for God's sake? As for painting, I haven't spat on one of those little dried-up pans of watercolour for years and, let's be honest, reading isn't really an unusual pursuit if you're a journalist.
At least I wasn't as aspirational as one friend who didn't even own a bike but who put "classic cars" down on her list of hobbies. She got the job but her boss frequently attempts to embarrass her in front of clients by calling on her extensive knowledge of the vintage motor trade. Of course, there must be people out there who still maintain their hobbies, and are able to jot down with all truthfulness that they spend every minute of their free time developing leadership skills with their camogie club, but I don't know any.
Everyone I know spends all their free time watching TV, talking on the phone, reading novels, drinking in pubs, shopping or generally socialising. There is the odd fit of enthusiasm where we cook for each other or go for a walk on Bull Island or even, most recently, decide to make bracelets, but these pursuits are not really sustained long enough to earn the tag "hobbies" when they're really "whims". Yet it's not really surprising that we're quite so lackadaisical about our free time because, truth be told, we don't have that much of it.
You might think that this would make us prize it even more, applying ourselves vigorously to archery and batik every moment that we're not up to our necks in the stock market, or interfaces, or waiting tables, but actually free time becomes that very short period when you get to let off steam or truly veg. out and relax. One friend, Ralph, even argues that dancing around his living room doing high kicks to the Rolling Stones' Brown Sugar should really be called a hobby, seeing as he does it regularly as a stress-relieving measure. In addition, many people are spending all their work hours doing what would originally have been a hobby, i.e. messing around on a computer. The lines are becoming increasingly blurred.
Yet as I was mulling over the sad decline of the hobby while walking down Grafton Street the other weekend, it struck me that the whole country looks as though it's just off to do something very dynamic in the way of pastimes, when in fact all we're doing is going shopping or wandering very un-athletically round town. Men in particular tend to look as though they could be in the middle of a strenuous orienteering manoeuvre these days - all rugged boots, tough nylon jackets and backpacks, which are obviously very necessary when entering the dangerous climes of Brown Thomas.
Then there are the people who look as though they could quite happily jump on a skateboard at any minute despite being knock-kneed with terror at the thought of breaking a wrist; the women who plodded around in those high-street versions of diving shoes last summer, but who couldn't set foot in a swimming pool for fear of turning their highlights green, and even the arty tunic set who think that pastels are just nice shades of light pink and blue. Whatever look you go for these days, it seems that hobby chic is as trendy as hobbies themselves are dead. What we're all actually doing when we get dressed these days, is performing the sartorial equivalent of the bluffing we did on our CVs all those years ago.
That Prada-style tunic with the multiple pockets is signalling to the world that although you have a large belly, flat feet and a lazy streak that would put the Royle family to shame, you are secretly an active sports-person with a talent for off-roading. Just as you would construct a charismatic, vigorous, classic car-loving character in order to impress a future employer, we now wear shoes with loads of Velcro or a pair of chef's trousers or a natty line in cargo pants, to say to a future mate, "I may look like an underachieving lump of lard but hey, you should see me when I get cracking on my hobbies. That's when I'm really impressive."
Louise East can be contacted at wingit@irish-times.ie