In Defence of The Male Psyche

As my regular readers will know, it was my Birthday the day before yesterday. Yesterday, however, was the momentous day when we journeyed to Circuit City for my Birthday Present.

I got one of those portable DVD players, with the 7” Widescreen.

However, I’ve been fairly surprised at the sheer number of times I’ve had to explain this acquisition to other people…and every one of the people I’ve explained myself to has been female.

So, ladies, I’m going to give you a brief, but terrifying, insight into the male psyche:

Lesson One : The Reasons You Can Understand.

Ok, here’s the deal. Despite the fact I very rarely go anywhere, I decided to buy a portable DVD player, to watch movies ‘on the go’. Why?

Reason 1) Our set-top DVD player is on its last legs. It’s going to have to be replaced fairly soon anyway, and the portable can, indeed, be connected to our regular TV, including our surround sound system.

Reason 2) I recently got a whole slew of my favorite British comedies, (that I can’t get on TV over here), through Bittorrent. Our set-top DVD player has a slight problem with the aspect ratio on DVD’s that have been made from avi files. Basically, the picture always looks either squished or stretched. The portable DVD player handles them quite nicely.

Reason 3) Our bedroom TV only has a ‘rabbit ears’ antenna, meaning we can only get two channels, that come in so badly, it’s not worth watching them. Our cable feed won’t reach, so the new portable means we can watch the occasional movie in bed.

Reason 4) Humor doesn’t travel too well, and a lot of the British Shows I like, everyone else hates. So now Sunny can watch her HGTV, and I can put on my headphones and watch Red Dwarf, Blackadder or The League of Gentlemen, without pissing everyone else off.

Now, you see ladies, these are all perfectly valid reasons, and the ones we use to justify a purchase to YOU…Despite the fact that the usual responses to the above reasons are:

1) Get a normal DVD player, they’re cheaper.
2) Who cares if the picture is a little squished, you can still see it, right?
3) We can watch the movie in the living room, BEFORE we go to bed.
4) We can take turns with what we want to watch on the TV.

Ok, that’s all well and good, and to another female, those are perfectly valid reasons. To a man however, it’s the equivalent of us saying to you: “What do you need that new dress for? There’s plenty of wear in the one you bought last year!”

Here’s the deal:

1) All men, without exception, are attracted to gadgets, be they power tools, electronics or something else. Let me explain this. My new Portable DVD has a screen, lots of buttons and no less than three flashing lights. This alone is reason enough to buy one. Women buy shoes they can’t walk in. Men buy gadgets they don’t need.
2) We’re perfectionists when it comes to our gadgets. For you, being able to see and hear the TV are enough. We, however, need to get everything just right, from aspect ratio, to color balance, brightness and picture sharpness and clarity. You might not know what ‘Progressive Scan’ means, and neither do a lot of men…but we know we want it. (This is why we won’t re-arrange the furniture because you think the loveseat would look better by the window…but will rearrange the entire house to make sure we find the ‘sweet-spot’ for our surround sound system.)
3) Everything comes down to manhood, from our cars to our cutlery. When a man says “Have you seen my new DVD player?” What he’s actually saying is: “Look, I have a very large penis.” When the other man says: “Wow, that’s great, but does this have the new 7.1 Surround Decoder? Mine does.” He’s actually saying: “Yes, your penis is indeed large, but it is not as big as mine.”
4) Men are hunter-gatherers by nature. We’re also part Magpie. Basically, we want, in fact NEED, lots and lots of stuff, and the shinier the better.

In closing, think of the word ‘Gadget’, from the latin ‘Gadj-eet’, meaning: Things that men don’t need, but can’t live without.