I second the Mac recommendation. I use Linux on my desktop, but use Mac for laptop, after 6 years of using MBP (I still use my mid-2015 15" MBP for mobile development and day to day work), I can vouch for their quality (but skip the 2017, 2018, butterfly keyboard + touchbar crap, our company have buttload of those broken). Their M1/M2 battery life is just out of this world.
If OP worry about spending big and having buyers remorse, I recommend MBP.
No you're not weird, pair programming is not one size fits all solution.
EDIT: To be clear, I still find value in pair programming, but a mandatory pair programming, for me is quite absurd. It should be organically happening, for example, a junior asking for help from senior.
Err what? Saudi's trying to bolster their Football league by raiding European stars (what the Chinese did many years ago), party also because of their supposedly World Cup bid.
Coincidentally, Chelsea is trying to offload quite a few of their players, some of which are Moslem, and some are deemed as underperforming surplus. AFAIK, they did gave out crazy contract/salary to the players, but as far as the bid themselves is pretty "fair" market wise.
Obviously one of the reason Chelsea is finding it hard to move these players is because of their expected salary, but I don't see how the Saudi decide to gave outrages salary to these players is something shady, they're basically trying to attract talent to their own league, that most of these players would find unattractive, footballing wise.
And Chelsea is not the only club having to deal with this, the Saudi's are bidding left and right.
But not expected, and they may have selfhosted repo at home.