Does the word ‘Dumbass’ flash up when your husband calls your phone? | Polly Hudson

At first glance, it’s such a simple, reasonable ask. A Threads user went vaguely viral last week, with a post announcing: “In other news, my wife of 11 years is respectfully requesting that I take ‘(hinge)’ out of her contact name on my phone.” A lively discussion then followed, which included the pertinent note that Rob in the Channel 4 comedy Catastrophe “has the mother of his children in his phone as ‘Sharon London Sex’”. Somebody else reported a husband of more than a decade saved as “Feyonce”, but this makes perfect sense, because if you thought of a pun that good, of course you’d be reluctant to let it go.

Personally, I’ve never got over noticing – on their reality show rather than while lunching – that Kim Kardashian has her mother saved as Kris Jenner instead of, say, Mom. It felt like an extremely revealing detail from the queen of the genre.

The Threads debate raised an interesting question, though: should your contact list be amended and updated, or preserved as a historical artefact? Perhaps the poster is underestimating the warm glow to the heart and soul he subconsciously receives whenever his wife’s name pops up and he’s transported back to the beginning of their unlikely love story. Living app-ily ever after is rare, after all.

Other replies echoed the notion that contacts provoke memories. “I’m coming up on the 10th anniversary of ‘Trashy Anne’ … who I got to know volunteering as bin collectors at a local festival,” said one. Another confided: “My best friend and I met through a mutual friend almost 15 years ago. I’m still ‘Ayannah (Gabby’s friend)’.” The comfort we get from a reminder of these origin stories may be more important than it seems.

There are exceptions, though, particularly when you edit in haste. As this repenter-at-leisure explained: “When I was still dating my husband, I got mad and I changed his contact to ‘dumbass’. It was like that for about seven years, lol.”