THIS JUST IN…Men and Women are Different: Clothes & Gifts

                I know that the idea runs entirely counter to what the PC Handbook tells us that we’re all supposed to think, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not still true.  Men and women are different. 

                The PC Handbook is the most mind-bogglingly schizophrenic book written since Tammy Faye Baker’s autobiography (it’s a pretty good read, no joke).  Boiling its modern gender norms section down to its essence, it says that men and women are exactly the same, except in cases where they’re not.  Or, to put it another way, modern women can hold any job that men can, but they still need to be told that their socks match their earrings. 

                That’s cool.  On the whole, I’m totally fine with the concept.  Pay equity makes sense.  Letting the newly-discovered fact that Hollywood actors cheat on their wives make you mad enough to impulse-buy tabloids in line at Ingles is dumb.  And that’s where we are as a country when it comes to gender ideals.  We’re still in that mushy transition phase where the horses are happy that more people are riding cars from an early-onset equine arthritis point of view, but they’re starting to realize that this means they’re going to get fewer apples.

                Men and women do have some fundamental differences.  It’s always been the case.  It’s by design.  It’s miraculous, annoying, beautiful and the reason that divorce lawyers wake up in the morning. 

                For example, women believe that the way that their boyfriends dress is a reflection on them…because in Girl World, IT IS.  How many husbands do you know who throw a temper tantrum if his wife wants to go to Walmart in sweat pants?  Unless it’s somehow tied into a business dinner or meeting his parents for the first time, most men rightly think that what their women wear is far outside of their zone of influence…because IT IS. 

                The only clothes that I’ve ever bought my girlfriend that she actually wears were things that she told me at least twenty times to buy for her.  This is how that story unfolds:  We’re out shopping somewhere, probably against my will.  Let’s say we’re in Belk’s.  She points out that she likes that light green scarf.  She thinks that I notice because I nod my head to indicate that I’m paying attention.  After a month or so of not getting that scarf, she cuts out a picture from a sales ad with a phone number to order said scarf and/or a web address where I can purchase the scarf.  I pocket the picture.  I know that she wants me to buy her the scarf, and, in that exact moment I plan on buying it, but I’m quickly distracted by a poodle peeing on a shrub, and I, once again, forget.  A few weeks and a holiday full of missed opportunity and regret later, there’s still no scarf, so she cooks up a seemingly plausible plan to take me back to Belk’s and, while there, she again, this time more emphatically, points out the scarf, while slipping me a Google Map of directions from my apartment to the store with a hand-drawn store interior map of how to get from the entrance to the scarf rack.  A metaphorical light bulb clicks on above my head.  A few days later, I buy her the scarf—with the coupon I found lovingly placed in my car console.  On the next appropriate holiday, I give her the scarf in a cardboard box covered with poorly wrapped holiday wrapping paper.  We both feel like we’ve accomplished something. 

                We’ll get back to clothes in a second, but I mentioned wrapping paper, so let’s take a tangent into gift-wrapping.  Presentation is key for women.  The gift itself is only about 40% of the present in Girl World.  20% of the total equation is the gift wrapping (the little white-handled gift bag, the deli-style filler paper, the tasteful ribbon).  And the other 40% is the card.  If there were no women in the world, there would be no Hallmark.  There’d be no new people, too, but that’s not today’s rant.  To men, Hallmark is a fraud, a trick, a shell game.  It’s high-school girl poetry theft in corporate form.  It’s someone else’s words, someone else’s artwork, manufactured by someone else.  To women, it’s an indication that at least twenty-five minutes more time was spent thinking about them, and is, thus, an indication of how much the gift giver cares for the gift receiver. 

                Let’s get back to clothes, since they may be the easiest differential factor that showcases the basic differences between men and women.  If I could get away with it, I’d only own three pairs of pants, about five shirts, two pairs of shoes, a jacket and maybe a wool cap if I lived somewhere cold.  Even with reality as it is, I pretty much always wear about that.  Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got other clothes in my closet.  I just hardly ever wear them.  I do own a Christmas-themed tie, but, since I’m not an assistant manager at Target, I don’t think I’ve worn it more than twice.

                I have intimate relationships with a few articles of clothing.  They’re not sexual in nature, but they are loving.  I’ve got a dark green corduroy button-down shirt that I love.  I love it.  I’m not ashamed.  I wear it every chance I get, even in 90 degree weather.  It loves me back.  Even though it was given to me BY my girlfriend and she once loved it, too, she now hates it and resents the fact that Cordy (his nickname) and I have grown so close.  Why?  Because Cordy is old.  He has a large rip in his back.  His buttons have been on life support for a year and are begging for a perky nurse practitioner in a solid-color track suit to pull the plug.  But, I won’t give up on Cordy.  Even though she introduced me TO Cordy and brought Cordy’s undying love into my life, my girlfriend wants me to just abandon him, give him away to some charitable organization that provides button-down shirts and khaki pants for the homeless.  Of course, I’m not going to get rid of Cordy until he literally falls apart in my hands.  That’s how I see it.  She thinks that Cordy should retire, or maybe do some viable work as ragcloth.  I also want Cordy to work, to do his job, almost every non-work day, until he dies on his feet, doing what he loves, wrapping me in warmth, comfort, and endless love.  Only then will I let Cordy go to the great sale rack in the sky.   

                If I go to a party and I notice, across the room, that some guy is wearing the same shirt as I am, I don’t care.  If I do care at all, it’s in a good way.  Hell, I might even bond with the guy over the fact that we’re wearing the same shirt.  If my girlfriend spots some girl wearing the same outfit as she’s wearing, my night is essentially over, or at least will wind up sucking.  I’ve even suggested twice that she throw a spare outfit in the car just in case this situation arises, because it has happened before, but she was offended by the very idea both times.  It might save our New Year’s Eve.  It makes sense.  But, in her mind, it’s an affront to her fashion sensibilities.  Whatever.  I’m right.  It would be a good idea, but, then again, so is my Thursday Night is Wife-Swapping Night, and that one didn’t go over too well either.

                 Those are just a few of the ways that men and women are different about clothes and gifts.