Christmas Presents
A friend of mine, prettyturkey, posted an LJ entry outlining how men are generally thoughtless creatures when it comes to gifts for women and posted an example that I'll reproduce here:
Just what I'd want to get from my man, beauty products "here honey, I bought you special face cream to make your skin soft" er .... was it not soft enough before?
Of course this got me thinking about gift-giving (as if I wasn't already thinking about it, this close into the season), especially for women. Women can be a different breed of animal to buy gifts for, as my friend illustrated. With my guy friends, I've known them for a long enough time and generally are aware of what's been going on with them that I can pick out a decent gift. A memory card or an extra controller for friend, maybe a new stein or martini shaker for another, and perhaps one of them cheap-ass hockey tickets for someone else. They'll accept them as needed -- or just wanted -- facets of their life and accept graciously. If all else fails, beer and alcohol are great gifts.
However, women aren't that easy, in both ways of the word. Not only must your gift be thoughtful, but it must not hint of any sort of underhandedness in any way, shape, or form. To be honest, I can really only buy gifts for very, very few females I know: just Lynea and my sister. The former of which I'm starting to just blank on and the latter simply because I've known her my whole life.
But when you buy them gifts, as I said, you have to make sure that they don't insult the receiver, just as my reposted quote states. The cognitive dissonance comes in when it's something that they use and like. Suppose she likes a fancy brand of make-up. If you're a guy and have half of a clue, you should know she uses or likes. And thinking how nice it would be if you sprung for maybe some facial scrub or whatever the fuck they use that she hasn't bought simply because of price or not being able to use it much, you decide to buy it. But wait, she thinks you're telling her she's ugly because you're buying her a product that may make her more attractive.
So instead of narrowing it down, you just drop her a gift certificate for the make-up and tell her to buy what she needs. Guess what, she'll still be insulted! Apparently, gift cards are also a half-assed way out of giving a gift -- which I agree to an extent.
I personally think this comes about because not all women are completely secure about the way they look. Well tough shit. If the bar has been lowered so much by all the other guys, you should be damn happy that your man actually knew that you like to use Apricot-Banana Bare-Ass-Breast Cream with Sparkles and Effervescent Hydrate Beads. Most guys couldn't even tell you what shampoo they use!
To liken women getting beauty supplies, I think it may be something similar for a woman to giving her man a cock-ring or some sort of phallus accessory (for fun, I googled the term and there are only three websites that came up: this is the first one, truly able to spawn a whole 'nother LJ post) for their pleasure. "Oh honey, I know you're wonderful as you are, but you just don't stimulate my clit enough. Here, wear this sheath on your thingy the next time we make love."
Any man would be quite taken aback by this; one because there are very few women out there who would actually give their man sex toys for the holidays -- my goal is to find one of them -- and two, because we expect more of them. We don't always listen to women as we don't always care what they have to say. Or we do listen but the hints are so damn subtle, you couldn't find them if they were a vulva the size of a large hand-bag. Women, on the other hand, have impeccable memories: just wait until your next big argument with one, you'll see. We could mention two sentences about how we really wished we had X because it would make task Y so much more Z. And ten months later, there is present X nice and tidy for you.
So! My point of all this? Save yourself the trouble and just don't buy women any gifts.
Just what I'd want to get from my man, beauty products "here honey, I bought you special face cream to make your skin soft" er .... was it not soft enough before?
Of course this got me thinking about gift-giving (as if I wasn't already thinking about it, this close into the season), especially for women. Women can be a different breed of animal to buy gifts for, as my friend illustrated. With my guy friends, I've known them for a long enough time and generally are aware of what's been going on with them that I can pick out a decent gift. A memory card or an extra controller for friend, maybe a new stein or martini shaker for another, and perhaps one of them cheap-ass hockey tickets for someone else. They'll accept them as needed -- or just wanted -- facets of their life and accept graciously. If all else fails, beer and alcohol are great gifts.
However, women aren't that easy, in both ways of the word. Not only must your gift be thoughtful, but it must not hint of any sort of underhandedness in any way, shape, or form. To be honest, I can really only buy gifts for very, very few females I know: just Lynea and my sister. The former of which I'm starting to just blank on and the latter simply because I've known her my whole life.
But when you buy them gifts, as I said, you have to make sure that they don't insult the receiver, just as my reposted quote states. The cognitive dissonance comes in when it's something that they use and like. Suppose she likes a fancy brand of make-up. If you're a guy and have half of a clue, you should know she uses or likes. And thinking how nice it would be if you sprung for maybe some facial scrub or whatever the fuck they use that she hasn't bought simply because of price or not being able to use it much, you decide to buy it. But wait, she thinks you're telling her she's ugly because you're buying her a product that may make her more attractive.
So instead of narrowing it down, you just drop her a gift certificate for the make-up and tell her to buy what she needs. Guess what, she'll still be insulted! Apparently, gift cards are also a half-assed way out of giving a gift -- which I agree to an extent.
I personally think this comes about because not all women are completely secure about the way they look. Well tough shit. If the bar has been lowered so much by all the other guys, you should be damn happy that your man actually knew that you like to use Apricot-Banana Bare-Ass-Breast Cream with Sparkles and Effervescent Hydrate Beads. Most guys couldn't even tell you what shampoo they use!
To liken women getting beauty supplies, I think it may be something similar for a woman to giving her man a cock-ring or some sort of phallus accessory (for fun, I googled the term and there are only three websites that came up: this is the first one, truly able to spawn a whole 'nother LJ post) for their pleasure. "Oh honey, I know you're wonderful as you are, but you just don't stimulate my clit enough. Here, wear this sheath on your thingy the next time we make love."
Any man would be quite taken aback by this; one because there are very few women out there who would actually give their man sex toys for the holidays -- my goal is to find one of them -- and two, because we expect more of them. We don't always listen to women as we don't always care what they have to say. Or we do listen but the hints are so damn subtle, you couldn't find them if they were a vulva the size of a large hand-bag. Women, on the other hand, have impeccable memories: just wait until your next big argument with one, you'll see. We could mention two sentences about how we really wished we had X because it would make task Y so much more Z. And ten months later, there is present X nice and tidy for you.
So! My point of all this? Save yourself the trouble and just don't buy women any gifts.