The rap on bad gift givers

As the author of 1001 Questions To Ask Before You Get Married, it’s my hope to suggest scenarios that increase awareness of subjects and challenge assumptions of how best to deal with them.  So, let me tell a little story that ends, not with a conclusion or moral lesson, but a question.

Straight to the point, my husband told me that I’m a bad gift giver. It was his birthday and I apparently gave him a proverbial lump of coal. I wasn’t surprised; I didn’t stand a chance. This is a man who does research before buying a pair of shoes, and I’m not talking about comparison-shopping. He inquires about the item’s country of origin, material composition and the hand to machine labor ratio.  The man knows his stuff, and it shows. He looks gorgeous. I shop Forever 21 and impulsively buy shoes that were probably a tire in an earlier life.

If shopping skills warranted diplomas, I would hold a GED to his Ph.D.

So, this past week, when he unwrapped and tried on his new organic-cotton henley (which didn’t fit by the way) and found out that I preferred we go shopping together for his “real” gift instead of surprising him with an item he would reject (Exhibit 1: The henley) he was visibly and audibly disappointed. I was accused of not making an effort.  It was then, that I was branded the ego debilitating title of Bad Gift Giver.

We all have a BGG in our social and family networks. Some are truly thoughtless, like the people who re-gift the bonus shot glasses without the tequila or pass on the corporate gift basket despite your allergy to nuts. For whatever reasons, your gift is low on their list of priorities, and it shows. Then there are the generous BGGs. You feel the love and see the generosity, but you can’t stand the gift. These people bake you a beautiful cake in a flavor you don’t like, or give you an expensive knick-knack that will just take up room in a drawer. Yes, you’ve always loved cashmere, just not with gnome appliqués. Perhaps gift giving is a talent like dancing or singing. In other words, you either have “it” or you don’t. This leads to the question of the week:

Could you spend the rest of your life with an incurable Bad Gift Giver?  If so, how would you cope?

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Men and manicures

In a scene from Mad Men, star ad man Don Draper recoils at the thought of getting a manicure. The founder’s son and part-owner of the firm quickly sets him straight by saying that his father, one of the most rugged men he’s ever know in his life, would get a manicure every week. Once a week may be too much, but I firmly believe a man should get his nails done, at the very least, every time he gets a haircut.

All men are aware of the multitude of reasons why they should sport well tended digits - professional appearance, infection prevention through cuticle care, the socially awkward appearance of man-talons or worse, the unintended scratching of an innocent bystander.  The most compelling reason, of course, is sex -as in the opposite sex.    

When polled, women consistently say the hands are one of the first things they notice when meeting a man for the first time. A friend confessed that she found hair on the back of men’s hands sexy.  My sister used to say she could never marry a man who came home with dirt under his nails. 

For a woman, a man tells the story of his life through his hands - rough life, rough hands; soft hands, soft life.  Even Scarlet O’Hara’s cover of living the highlife was blown the moment Rhett held her ungloved hands.

I’ll never forget the brief moment a colleague held my shoulder to keep me from getting bumped by someone passing. In the brief moment his rough, calloused hand touched my shoulder I sensed a boy who played outdoors, built forts, went camping, played high school football and fixed cars on the weekend.  Although he’s now in management and spends his days in a suit and tie, his hands said his position was never a given. 

Touch being the most intimate of gestures, wouldn’t a man want to put his best hand forward when stroking the arm (or other limb) of a blazin babe?  Why risk killing the romance of holding hands by poking your partner with an assaulting hangnail?

Traditional barbershops of decades past would routinely offer manicure services.  I’d like to know who’s responsible for killing off this service. I’ll bet it was the nail biters. Whatever the reason, I’m on a crusade to make the service ubiquitous to men everywhere.  Hopefully I’ll succeed. I’m keeping my manicured fingers crossed.

Affair guilt

I travel alone regularly and there are a few certainties that occur on each of these trips.  The first two are that I won’t eat well, too much junk food, or sleep well, too accustomed to my husbands body taking up most the mattress. Next, is that I’ll be privy to an adulterous confession.

The men out number the women, but that’s not to say the women participate any less.  Each story is different, some are passionate, most are pitiful, all are predictable.

I’m no longer surprised how quickly men spew out the details of their affairs.  They never boast; they bemoan.  Ralph (of course not his real name) shook his head,  “I have a mistress because my father had a mistress, and I’m sure my uncles all had mistresses.  It’s what you did to show you were a man” Maintaining his woman for over twenty years made him feel both guilty and stuck.  “She never made a life for herself” he claimed, “ She never married or had children because of me.”  Now that he’s older, and less energetic and pressed to prove his manhood, he wants out of his time-share.  “I wish she would just go away.”

Most men think their wives aren’t aware of their affairs.  When faced with the low probability that twenty years of funneling money to a secret girlfriend would go unnoticed, Ralph agreed that maybe his wife had her suspicions.  A look of sorrow suddenly overtook his face. I’m not sure if it was over the thought of the pain he was causing his wife by his betrayal, or her perceived indifference over his actions.

Jeremy (ditto with the phony name) clutched two hands full of hair as he wailed that he was a sick man.  His addiction to younger women, he repeatedly stressed, had nothing to do with his wife.  “I love my wife, but when I’m with a younger woman, I am younger.”  But he wasn’t.  He was still 42 years old, and contrary to what his ego would like to believe, just another unremarkable client, which uncovered another certainty:

Whether through sex, drugs, alcohol, or plastic surgery, it’s easier to pay, than to face reality. 

Women who love psychopaths

Charles Manson still gets love letters, prison guards braced for the onslaught of groupies for Timothy McVeigh, and there’s prestige in loving a “lifer” as opposed to a man who’s merely serving limited time in prison.

Who are these women and what could they possibly find attractive in a person that has caused so much misery?  The gruesome news about the abduction of 11-year-old Jaycee Dugard by Phillip and Nancy Garrido had many asking who are these monsters.  An equally compelling question asks what kind of woman agrees to be the wife and accomplice to a man who conducts such horrors.

Multiple theories try to explain a woman’s attraction to a person the majority of the population considers disturbed.  Reasons such as the catchall low self-esteem, a rebellious adrenaline fix, or feeling like the sole savior of a man the rest of the world simply doesn’t understand, could all apply.

Even if all those theories could explain how a woman could assist and condone the kidnapping, enslavement and rape of a child, then the abuse of her subsequent children, we certainly don’t feel any better about the crimes committed, nor more sympathy towards the perpetrators.

 Even more despicable is the thought that the crime couldn’t have been prevented. There was no lack of oversight on the registered sex offender, ex-con, (although the depth of the oversight turned out to be the Achilles heel in this case).  There were multiple visits from parole officers and a call to 911 from a concerned neighbor.  Phillip’s own mother resided in the house, although it’s not clear whether she was aware of the girls living in the back yard.  Even if the Garrido’s prison correspondence and marriage had been banned, Phillip could have simply have found a different accomplice once paroled.

Had it not been for a manager of special events for the UC Berkley Police Department who felt suspicious about the robotic responses of two very pale, drably dressed young girls, the abduction case may have remained unsolved.

Perhaps the question of how this crime could have been prevented or arrested earlier, should be replaced with two unnerving questions:  How sharp are our radars to suspicious behavior, and if we suspect something is wrong, are the authorities we would normally notify be the best to turn to for help?

Men hate shopping, women miss bargains

In one of our Friday night Happy Hour chats at Chez Leahy, my husband and I calculated that we knew six single and available women for every one single available man.  By available we meant actively going through the sometimes painful task of trying to find Mr. or Ms. Wonderful and make a love match. 

My husband gave the standard answer that men have a broader range of ages to choose from.  A man in his forties, he continued, can date a woman in her twenties and nobody would bat an eye.  I reminded him of an animal called the Cougar, that can be found at trendy restaurants instead of zoos, and that woman have caught up with men in that department a long time ago, thank you Cher.  He then reminded me with a wink that I’m the older woman in our relationship.  Eleven months, but it still pissed me off.

I think the answer can be found in men and women’s shopping habits.  Most men don’t like to shop- insert disclaimer for metrosexuals, interior decorators, dandies, and comic book aficionados.  Men go to a store grab what they need and get out.  Their motto is: “ I know what I like, and don’t make it difficult to get.

Women on the other hand, spend countless frustrating hours trying to find the perfect pair of whatever, or spend a fortune buy stuff that’s too uncomfortable or inappropriate to wear with any frequency.  Their motto: “Comfortable, sexy shoes are an oxymoron”.

This quick session on the couch of Retail Therapy clearly explains the discrepancy.  Because men only focus on getting the thing that has worked for them in the past, (no mystery why 501 jeans have been around so long) they have a higher success rate at finding their other half.  While women are left behind as they cruise the malls (or bars), passing the shops with the sensible shoes or practical tops searching for the elusive, comfortable five-inch stiletto.