I have a question….
Why is gift wrapping so hard? For men that is.
I don’t think I’ve ever met a man who was confident and adept at the whole wrapping presents thing. Most men I know tend to leave all the gift wrapping to their significant female others. I know in our household I’ve been pretty much responsibile for the wrapping of presents for every occasion (christmas, birthdays, engagements, weddings what have you) for the last ten years – for his family and mine.
And I’m not talking about a bunch of bricklayers here who might be a bit clumsy in the fine motor skills department. My Dad who was a mechanical engineer and was known for his fastidious and meticulous nature hated wrapping presents and would usually give any wrapping he required to one of his three daughters to deal with – which was usually only one gift for my Mum seeing that he had always fobbed all the gift purchasing duties off to her too over the years.
In fact the only time I remember being impressed by a man’s wrapping skills is when Surly wrapped up a stuffed cat for the Small Child on his third birthday. It had taken him 45 minutes to do it and he was obviously trying to be silly. BigSal did admit he got rather frustrated with it eventually but once committed to the course of action, he had to see it through 🙂
Anyway, today I watched while sir_phil struggled with his Christmas wrapping. He was cursing and getting annoyed but he persevered because he knew his girlfriend would appreciate his efforts. And there was me watching his complete (but very sweet) incompetence, being alternately amused and then visibily twitching as he use more paper than necessary and some of the most ‘interesting’ of wrapping techniques I’ve ever seen. It was all I could do not to say ‘Oh for goodness sake move over and let me do it !!!’
I don’t understand why such a simple thing can be so difficult for some. I don’t remember ever being taught how to wrap gifts… it’s just something you pick up by osmosis somehow. I wonder if it’s a failing of just Aussie men? Are their foreign counterparts more adept and less stressed over the present wrapping process? Or is it just the Y chromosone in general that can’t comfortalby exist with ‘the wrapping gene’ 🙂
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