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Every Christmas, as part of my charity activities, I offer an informal shopping advice service to husbands and partners of friends who find the prospect of buying a gift for their wife/girlfriend and, increasingly, their teenage daughters absolutely terrifying.
Men who think nothing of venturing into war zones, or standing in the House of Commons dispatch box, or floating companies on the Stock Exchange, may find themselves reduced to eager (and rather adorable) toddlers in the face of perspective of being wrong.
It’s an interesting question why men find it so difficult to buy gifts. Because there is no doubt that it is so.
While women tend to view Christmas shopping as an enjoyable leisure activity, men seem to view it as a test, a gift-giving test of sorts. Most would prefer root canal surgery. That’s probably why they leave it until the last minute, often with disastrous results.
The worst example was a friend who, after procrastinating forever, discovered that the only option left on Christmas Eve was the local kitchenware store.
So, on Christmas Day, his beloved received a cheese grater, one with an elegant design, but a cheese grater nonetheless.
The cheese grater is a classic of the genre. Not only does it demonstrate a surprising lack of forethought and last minute action, but it is also an element of such menial work that it is more of an insult than a gift. It says, “You’re so low on my priority list that I forgot to buy you something and then when I finally remembered, I bought a mundane kitchen utensil.”
It would have been better if I had just given him a card and some cash.
Why do men find it so difficult to buy gifts for their wife or girlfriend?
Fundamentally, the first rule when buying gifts is that they should be something the recipients would never buy themselves.
A cheese grater is one of life’s necessities, like a strainer, teapot or toilet roll holder. A gift is something you dream of having but would never buy because it is too indulgent or expensive. It may have a practical purpose – that’s not a problem – but it has to be additional.
A good example is the Dyson Airwrap. Almost every woman I know craves one. I have had many discussions with friends about its merits and whether its price can one day be justified. They also have multi-generational appeal – my daughter and her friends want one. And yet, I don’t know anyone who has bought one. At almost £500, it’s too indulgent.
The same goes for toiletries, which most men consider a minefield but which women covet, even those who say no.
For example, a man might worry about the implications of purchasing skin care products for a loved one, but if it’s luxurious enough, it won’t matter. No woman will turn down a bottle of Charlotte Tilbury Magic Cream or its equivalent.
The most difficult gifts for men to buy are clothing items. This is because men almost invariably tend to buy things they wish their partners would wear, rather than what their partners actually wear.
In fact, I once unwrapped a beautiful Rigby & Peller corset, which no doubt would have looked lovely on Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, but which on me was a lot more Rocky Horror Picture Show. I felt terrible, because I knew it must have cost a fortune, and it also made me feel hopelessly inadequate, which meant my normal underwear from Marks & Spencer wasn’t up to par.
The other problem with the corset was that, by not being me at all, it made me wonder if the person in question secretly wanted me to be someone else. Which, given that shortly afterward she did, in fact, run off with someone else (who, coincidentally, would have carried off a Rigby & Peller corset with aplomb), turned out to be true.
In that sense, the old saying “It’s the thought that counts” may be true in more ways than one.
Also, on that note, don’t fall for the ‘Oh, don’t worry about me, I don’t need anything’ trick. No woman ever wants to say that.
Cost is not necessarily a guarantee of success either. In fact, in some ways, there’s nothing worse than a uselessly expensive gift that’s all money and no class.
Even worse are gifts that are essentially gifts to the buyer. In theory, the cheese grater can fall into this category, but so can all appliances and/or garden furniture and objects such as televisions.
Once, a friend’s husband gave her a jacuzzi. While she only used it maybe once, he never comes out of it!
So, gentlemen, it’s very simple: a gift doesn’t have to be mega-significant, super-expensive or ultra-complicated. It just has to be something that shows a little effort and reflects the fact that you’ve been paying attention.
Or failing that a Dyson Airwrap.
To my mother’s saviors: Thank you!
Sometimes it is tempting to think that there are no good people left in the world. But what happened last week after my mother fell and hurt her leg proved otherwise. I was in Spain and needed an ambulance. Trying to be helpful, I Googled the phone number of the nearest bar and explained the situation in my forced Spanish. Then the staff ran to Mom’s aid, gave her a strong drink and called an ambulance. The Kindness of Strangers: The Best Christmas Gift Ever.
Not so great, Ariana.
Ariana Grande’s role as Glinda the Good Witch in the film Wicked has earned her millions of young fans. But it seems the real Ariana, pictured, isn’t as sweet as she seems, as she reportedly became close to her co-star Ethan Slater while she was still married to Dalton Gomez. Maybe not the role model Hollywood had in mind…
More biases from the BBC
Why is the BBC refusing to play Keir Starmer’s parody single, Freezing This Christmas by Sir Starmer and the Granny Harmers? I’m old enough to remember The Beat singing the anti-Thatcher anthem Stand Down Margaret. With Starmer even more unpopular than Maggie in his first term, the BBC is showing its true political colors. Plus, all download revenue goes to Age UK..
The Labor Party continues its leveling down agenda. In its quest to eliminate “middle class bias” from the school curriculum, the Latino Excellence Program is being scrapped. God forbid the next generation of public school students have access to anything as enlightening as the classics.
It is hard to believe that the impact of Rachel Reeves’ National Insurance on wages now means that 45 per cent of charitable donations will end up in the Treasury coffers. Literally stealing from the charity can. And they say that the conservatives are the unpleasant party…
One of Donald Trump’s top strategists has described Lord (Peter) Mandelson as an “idiot”. Given that our new ambassador to the United States once described Trump as a “danger to the world” and “little short of a white nationalist and racist,” that’s a positively diplomatic start.
If Sir Keir Starmer is so keen to abolish the Lords, why has he nominated 30 new peers, including Sue Gray (presumably for her ‘services in stitching up Boris Johnson’)?
Prince Andrew He is reportedly so discouraged that he stopped walking his late mother’s corgis, which were left in his care. If dogs can’t cheer you up, things must be very bad.