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If ever I were lucky enough to appear on the game show Family Fortunes and asked to name the most common reasons for absence from work, I would hazard a guess at bad backs, stress, migraine, and other well-known health problems.
I would think that most people would guess along the same lines. But there's something else, a condition that I would never have named in a million years. Something that, apparently, is responsible for the loss of eight million working days every year.
What is it? Lovesickness. I'm not kidding. And the people who get it badly enough to stay off work are men. Blokes, it seems, are far more likely to suffer the side-effects of romance than women, with symptoms including dizziness, rashes and stomach pains.
This, according to a survey by an online dating agency, can be accompanied by heart palpitations and leave the sufferer unable to concentrate at work.
Now, I always thought women were the ones who fell head-over-heels in this way, who sat waiting for the phone to ring, unable to eat or sleep. I've been there myself, albeit some years ago when men actually noticed that I was female, and it isn't pleasant.
But however painful - and we know that men feel pain far more acutely than women - it's not something you'd stick on a doctor's note.
Still, if love has become an acceptable ailment in the view of the medical profession, and, I assume, employers, who am I to argue? I do though, believe that a few concessions should be made to us females, who suffer many stresses and strains, yet soldier on regardless. If men can take time off work for lovesickness, GPs should recognise the suffering we endure, and give us reason to miss work for the following medical emergencies: l Garmentitis: Translating as nothing to wear'. This situation can bring on a nervous breakdown within minutes. It is particularly distressing if you have to get up early when it is still dark, and realise that you have not put your clothes out the night before. You do not want to wake everyone else but suddenly remember with horror that not only have you forgotten to wash your only decent shirt.
l Chronic hairmonia: Otherwise known as bad hair day'. Every day, women go out to work in their millions with lank, lifeless, unwashed hair, the result of getting home too tired for anything other than a spot of TV and bed. You know you look a sight and feel horrible all day.
l Trishatitis: Otherwise known as DTA - Daytime TV Addict. You get up and immediately become hooked on GMTV. They have some interesting guests on the sofa and, try as you might, you can't drag yourself away from your own.
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