A short video that came by me this morning, with some guy’s idea (off the top of his head) of the top five things that men actually want for Christmas; you really don’t want to see the original source. The larger point is that such a list is a distillation of someone’s beliefs about what men are really like — or, more accurately, what real men, normative men, are like.
I would prefer to think of it as a list of things men might not have thought of themselves. So: not want they really want, but what they might like yet might not know about or have thought of getting for themselves. That makes more sense. Ranking the items makes no sense at all.
I am, of course, far off normative American masculinity, so recommendations for such a person pretty much just slide off me, as they do in the annual lists for Fathers Day.
Here’s the list, which (I was pleased to see) is missing gifts having to do with grilling meat, sports, power tools, cars, beer, and golf. It would be nice to get some unexpected recommendations in the grooming and clothing lines, but I’m guessing that this is edgy territory for Real Men, bordering as it does on the faggy and the feminine. Gearheads ok, sissies not.
5 noise-cancelling headphones
4 portable power station (for charging devices)
3 pool sliders (slip-on footwear)
2 mixology kit
1 underwear (because men won’t buy it for themselves)
I assume that Real Men are reluctant to buy underwear for themselves because it would be too faggy. Underwear wouldn’t be on my Christmas list because I’m a fag and it’s way too important to me to get just the right briefs to let someone other than a boyfriend buy them for me. We have our standards.
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