Vaughan Gunson asks what's your obsession in this week's Topical Takes

Northern Advocate columnist Vaughan Gunson.

Last week on Radio Sport, Stephen Jones, a well-known British rugby writer, said that New Zealanders' rugby obsession was "ridiculous". He went on to claim that rugby defined us (which he believes is a bad thing) and that "there's a million other things to life than rugby".

Apparently Stephen Jones loves to wind up New Zealand rugby supporters. He reckons New Zealanders are "almost as good at not getting irony as they are at rugby".

Now while I'll happily watch a good game of rugby, I'd also like to think I'm a multifaceted man of the world, so to be reduced to a crude caricature of a humourless worshipper of the oval ball is rather insulting. It's the kind of thing I've come across before reading stories in overseas newspapers, that all New Zealanders are rugby mad; that we eat, live and breathe rugby and our collective self-worth would have crumbled if we hadn't won those world cups.

We'd be the saddest country on the planet, sulking at the bottom of the world.

This unflattering portrayal needs to be countered, I think, with some hard facts.
Fact one: in my workplace we have never once discussed rugby. I concede there's only four of us, so not a large selection, and the gender balance is three to one in favour of women, but nevertheless I can declare there's no rugby obsession where I work.

Neither have I had a conversation about rugby in an art gallery, at a kid's soccer game, or in bed with my partner (if you have, maybe you do have a bit of an issue).

There's also the fact that nearly four million people living in this country didn't watch the last test between the All Blacks and the Lions. What were all these non-rugby obsessives doing?

Maybe they were reading books. Many New Zealanders rate reading as their most enjoyable way to relax. We spend on average 44 minutes a day reading for pleasure, according to Statistics NZ. Far more New Zealanders go to the library than ever attend a rugby game.

Stephen Jones might have been more accurate in describing us as a country of obsessive book readers. There's a punchy headline: "Kiwis shun the real world, prefer books", or "New Zealanders are a bunch of library geeks".

Regardless of your passion, or lack of, for rugby, the serious point is that stereotypes are never supported by careful consideration of the facts, or indeed when we disengage our fast thinking reptilian brain and use some slow reasoning instead.

I might bristle at being lumped in with a caricature of the New Zealand rugby supporter, but just think how people in the Middle East must feel at the racist stereotypes heaped on them, as if they were all potential terrorists. Or what about Americans trying desperately to tell the world that they're not all like Donald Trump.

Perhaps one way to avoid lazy stereotyping and to humanise people in other countries is to think about what 99 per cent of them are truly obsessed by, which, like you, will be their children, the desire to be loved and to love, good food and fun times, a comfortable and safe place to call home. Humans in all countries are crazy obsessives for these things.

■ Vaughan Gunson is a writer and poet interested in social justice and big issues facing the planet.