Why men are more fussy than women when it comes to Christmas presents

Dec 21 , 2016

The safest way to shop for men? Look in their closet and buy the same thing they’re already using

As Christmas approaches, guys always complain about how difficult it is to buy gifts for their wives and girlfriends. Clearly, they’ve never tried to buy presents for themselves.

Men actually think they are the easiest people to buy for, but they’re not. As women, we offer you a lot more options. Just think about all the different departments for us at Lane Crawford. The dream gift most women truly desire is a walk-in closet, in order to keep all the stuff we buy and wear.

Among the things we can never have enough of include accessories such as earrings, necklace, scarves, sunglasses, and – of course – jewellery. As a present, you can never go wrong with jewellery. Even if we don’t like it enough to wear, we’ll like it enough to keep. That’s just the stuff that doesn’t require specific sizing. If men made an effort to remember our shoe size, there’s a whole realm of gifts to consider.

Men’s collections don’t have as many trinkets, but from my experience, some self-professed dudes are more fussy than the girliest girl. I’ve had boyfriends look disappointed because the tie I bought isn’t a style they would wear. Another grimaced at the expensive Oxford shoes I purchased because the tassels were too feminine. Then there was the boyfriend who said he liked the watch I gave him but never wore it. When I confronted him later, he confessed it was just not impressive enough for work. Well, sorry it’s not the limited-edition Patek Philippe you wanted. I’m your sweetie, not your sugar-daddy.

On the other end of the spectrum, there are males who literally don’t care about anything except their hobby obsessions. They have no interest or appreciation in expensive vanities or luxury items. You could give them a beautifully crafted Montblanc writing instrument and they would just stick it in the stationery jar with the cheap pens swiped from hotel desks. They make no distinction. In their eyes, a pen is a pen.

The same guy will thank you for a gorgeous shaving kit with a stainless steel blade and horsehair brush, and then continue to use the disposable razor they’ve had for two years. This kind of collegiate mentality just hasn’t evolved to understand sophisticated grooming or social mannerisms. For them, socks and underwear aren’t such bad gift ideas. They tend to only know sports, computers, smartphones and meat pies. For some, vegetables are still strange foreign objects.

For Christmas, the best and safest thing you can do for them is to look in their closet or bathroom and buy an exact same product, item or thing they are using. As for our Christmas present, boys, we don’t need you to give us anymore frilly, translucent lingerie in fiery red. Those presents are not really for us anyway, they are for you.

Illustration: Maxim Savva / ILLUSTRATIONROOM.COM.AU

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