Some days it seems that the men of my acquaintance fall into one of three categories: either they are fans of spy stories or of Mafia stories. (What’s the third category, you ask? Fans of both.)

I wonder if the appeal is one of getting things done — illegal things, bad things — in secret, whether as part of an underworld or with an actual secret identity. That way nobody’s mom or girlfriend could come along and say, “Those 12 labors took you long enough, Hercules,” or “so, you guys stabbed Caesar 23 times? You got something against even numbers?” or even “I send you out with a gun, and you bring back cannoli? What is wrong with you?”

Whatever the reason, my husband is a spy-stories guy. I learned this early in our dating days, when he started me on John Le Carré’s “Tinker, Tailer, Soldier, Spy” series. (That was the BBC’s classic version with Alec Guinness.) This wasn’t just being thrown in at the deep end of the pool, it was more like parachuting into the inky blackness of a quarry swimming hole — at night.

Not only did I fail to understand it, but even after I read the book, I still didn’t really understand what was going on. It wasn’t until we then watched the series again that I began to say, “Oh! I get it now!”

For comic relief, there was the brilliant “Get Smart.” Really, that was a spy show crossed with Mel Brooks’ and Buck Henry’s best borscht-belt humor.

To be completely accurate, my husband and I discovered this separately, since we were each just kids when the series started in 1965. But once we met, we bonded with shared fondness for the show’s zany gadgets such as “The Cone of Silence” — which never once functioned properly, but only made the spies shout their secrets louder than ever — and its even zanier plots.

But far and away my husband’s favorite show was “The Prisoner.” The entire series, only 17 episodes long, had already become a cult classic. It starred Patrick McGoohan as a retired spy — or rather one who tries to retire, but wakes up to find himself a prisoner in a place known only as The Village.

The character is nameless throughout and told only that he is “Number 6” — a designation he rejects with one of the series’ most iconic lines: “I am not a number! I am a free man!”

The village he wakes up in does not seem to have a name either — and with no maps (and certainly no iPhone GPS) he cannot even be sure whether he is in a friendly country or enemy territory. He seems quite immune to its beauty, with buildings of every sort of architecture dotted about a verdant landscape.

All his attempts to escape are gently but persistently foiled and all of his questions receive the same response: “Questions are a burden to others; answers are a prison for oneself.”

My husband and I were still just dating when he informed me that viewing this series was mandatory. We even had to leave one party early to get back to the TV in my apartment to watch the next-to-last episode. Then we turned the TV off and complained to each other how frustrating it was that we wouldn’t see the ending until the following week.

“If only they would broadcast the last two episodes back to back tonight, then we wouldn’t have to wait,” I said.

We looked at each other, suddenly struck by the same horrible thought:

“You don’t suppose that’s exactly what they’re doing?”

“In that case,” my beloved said, “then just sitting here and complaining, with the TV off…”

We said it together: “We’d be BIG FOOLS!”

We turned the TV back on and discovered that…yes and yes.

But luckily we caught the ending. And I don’t think I would have understood it any better if I’d seen it intact. It was a famously enigmatic show.

My husband loved it so much that when it came time to plan a honeymoon, I called a travel agent and said, “I want to find that village in Wales where they filmed ‘The Prisoner,’ and see if there’s a way to stay there.” I knew its real-world name: Portmeirion, just like the line of pottery decorated with botanical designs.

Even with that information, in those pre-internet days, our travel agent told us she only succeeded at finding the place because her daughter was a private eye!

We had a much better time there than resident Number 6 ever did.