This man really, really wants you to know he loves this Eastenders character

Five thousand pounds is no small sum: you can spend it on an extremely lavish holiday; a room full of designer bags; a personal trainer for a year...the possibilities are endless.

Well, one man decided to spend his £5,000 printing an Eastenders character's face onto every inch of his room wall. And his mugs. And t-shirts...

You see, 48-year-old Shaun Smith has rather a large fixation about Eastenders’ Ben Mitchell.

This guy:

Picture: BBC/screengrab

His love of the character compelled him to spend some £5,000 on all sorts of memorabilia on the actor, who is portrayed by Harry Reid.

Smith, hailing from Essex, spent the money on personalised mugs, diaries, blankets, clothes and posters.

He even has a Ben Mitchell onesie that he frequently wears to do his shopping.

The reason he has such a close connection with the character (who eventually comes out as gay), he tells The Sun, is because he can relate.

He went through a really difficult time coming out to Phil and had to deal with people turning against him.

I went through something similar.

He collects images of Ben Mitchell by freezing the programme on iPlayer, before taking screen grabs.

He has done this with every episode.

Smith's partner doesn’t seem to mind that he’s, in a way, sharing Smith with a fictional character.

My partner bought me the tracksuit.

He thinks that Ben is very attractive but I don’t see it like that. To me he is just a real inspiration

Of all the Ben Mitchell stuff, his favourite remains the 5ft 11 cardboard cut-out of Ben, the onesie and the tracksuit.

Not everyone understands his reasoning though, and the general consensus online seems to be that, well - it's rather strange.

HT The Sun

More: The football world is coming together to send Christmas cards to this terminally ill young fan

More: Harry Potter fans have a mindblowing theory that explains Father Christmas