The truth about men’s love for cars and gadgets

Jane*, a married woman could not fathom why John*, her husband had thrown the mother of all tantrums, giving their ten-year-old son such a serious thwack after he accidentally smashed the screen of his treasured 43-inch Samsung flat screen TV with a baseball bat.

Jane was not irked so much as to whether the boy actually did damage the TV; she was furious because of the thorough beating the husband had meted out on the child. Jane reckoned that a TV is a replaceable object but her son wasn’t.

That is a common scenario where men attach too much value to their “beloved” gadgets, sometimes, way above the family members. There is an unsaid rule in most homes where some gadgets no-no for the children.

To buttress this point, a joke abounds of a man who after his wife arrived home dripping with blood from injuries caused by an accident involving their car, the first question he that shot out of his mouth was “where is my car, is it damaged?” Instead of first seeking to know whether his wife was seriously hurt or not against the dictates of common sense. He had put too much value on his car than his spouse that he could not imagine seeing the wrecked car!

Men have been known to pamper their cars, dole over their electronic gadgets much more than they pamper their spouses and children – meaning that cars and other inanimate fancy gadgets receive undivided attention at the expense of their families. In some instances, this tended to cut into family budgets. Cars and electronic gadgets can spend a sizeable chunk of family budget sometimes to the chagrin of women.

Cars are primped up, occasionally “treated” to sprucing at the so-called car salons (especially in Nairobi) and car washes, whereas, a woman cannot remember when her man lastly financed her salon, pedicure, manicure or even purchased a new dress for her. Women don’t understand it at all. A colleague of this writer thinks men take this too far. While the family car is important to get around in, men have a personal attachment to their cars and gadgets that is not comfortable with women.

“Men pamper their cars and gadgets. On routine basis, a man will take his car for servicing, washing, repainting and sometime to put a few unnecessary additional features to them. However, it’s next to impossible for a woman to get such a treat from her man. Men say women are human beings and can take care of themselves; cars and gadgets need all the man’s attention, she said”

Men have been observed lovingly caressing their cars and complaining about tiny scratch on the hood. On the flip side they rarely express affection to their women. A tiny dent on the car causes so many concerns to them. Women on the other hand cannot wrap their minds around this misplaced affection. They wonder why anyone would have such sentimental attachment to something so inanimate like a car or a gadget.

Chris Mauki, a practicing psychologist says that while females are wired to real life, and by extension human beings, males are more attached to inanimate things like gadgets and cars.

“Females are wired to people and what appertains to life. That is why most girls if asked their career choices, they are more likely to settle for those that have a human face in them such as teaching, while boys will most certainly choose careers involving inanimate objects such as engineering and physical sciences,” he said.

According to The Telegraph, the study, The Secret Life of Cars and What They Reveal about Us, an insight the relationship between vehicles and their owners, conducted by Iain MacRury and Peter Mash, of the University of East London, men talk about their cars as if talking to themselves while women are more comfortable expressing their feelings directly and see the car as separate from them.

Peter Marsh, added that the attachment of men to their cars is often translated into feelings and they were also likely to indulge in the type of shows of affection towards cars that one usually associates with loved ones or pets, such as patting the roof or dashboard.

According to Charles Nduku, a psychologist says that men’s attachment to their car and gadgets results from acculturation.