Any Irishmen looking for love this summer would be well advised to make sure their barbecue skills are up to scratch.
If not, they could be facing some lonely nights as a recent survey has revealed that a complete white wash of 100% of Irish women think less of a man who can’t light a barbecue.
The survey was carried out by supermarket chain Iceland who asked Irish people about their summer get-togethers.
Of course barbecues are often the highlight of many people’s summers. Aside from a summer holiday, whiling away the long nights with burgers, hot dogs, chicken and a few beers as the sun slowly sets is a memory plenty of people long for when the winter months come back around.
Therefore being able to actually light the barbecue is a pretty essential skill in order to get the party started.
It seems that the majority of women believe that being in charge of the barbecue is the man’s job. The survey showed that 55% of women think it is up to the man to do the cooking at an al fresco event.
Women believe that men are ‘hardwired’ to play with fire, which makes them the perfect candidates for barbecue duty, according to the survey.
However, 81% of women said that it was left to them to prepare and serve the side dishes.
Every one of the women surveyed said that they would be turned off by a man who was unable to light the barbecue.
It is thought that cooking meat on a fire is a sign of manliness that invokes the ancient days of hunting, according to the Irish Independent.
Ron Metcalfe, Managing Director of Iceland Ireland, said: ‘’We were really surprised at some of the statistics in the research on men and women’s BBQ habits.
“It’s great to see so many Irish people have a passion for cooking and enjoying a BBQ though, despite our unpredictable summer weather.”
Elsewhere in the survey it was revealed that nearly half of Irish people (46%) have experimented with less traditional barbecue meats such as kangaroo, ostrich and boar.
However, the most emphatic revelation was that women see it as an affront to a man’s masculinity if he is unable to light a barbecue.
So men, if you simply can’t get your head around it, it might be best to stay as far away from the barbecue as possible to avoid being called upon!
