A chair that is yours, and why it matters

Everyone who has a chair knows which one it is, and the reason is not comfort.

In any household with more than one seat there is a chair that belongs to somebody, without anybody ever having agreed to it. It is rarely the most comfortable chair. It is the one at the right distance from the window, or with the correct view of the door, or simply the one that was sat in enough times that it stopped being a choice. Sitting in it produces a small settling that a better chair in a different spot does not produce, and this is worth taking seriously rather than smiling at.

What is happening is that a place has accumulated associations, and arriving at it triggers them. The body recognises the arrangement and shifts down a gear. This costs nothing, requires no maintenance, and works whether or not you believe in it. It also explains the mild indignation of finding somebody else in your chair, which is out of all proportion to the inconvenience and is felt by more or less everybody.

The general principle extends beyond furniture. A particular corner of a train carriage. The side of the bed. One end of a kitchen bench. These small territorial habits are often described as fussiness and they are more usefully understood as free reliability: a fixed point in a day that is otherwise negotiated. Having three or four such places is not rigidity. It is a set of small pleasures that require nothing at all to keep going.