Choosing Living Room Furniture - Do Men Have Taste?

This article is a companion to my other piece titled "Living Room Furniture - Finding the Bargains".

According to Dr. Laura Schlessinger “men have simple needs”, which does not imply that we are simple minded (a point that, I'm sure, some female readers may take issue with). I will open this article on living room furniture with a little vignette about the selection of the type of seats in our new SUV. Being a fisherman, I am naturally interested in functionality over style so I told the dealer I was interested in cloth seats. My better half wanted leather seats. Want to venture a guess at what kind of seats we drove off in? The correct answer is leather.

Do women really want the opinion of a man on the selection of a living room furniture set? Does a women really want a truthful answer if she asks if she is fat or is she just wanting confirmation that she is not? If you said "yes", would there be a price to pay? In many respects, asking a question is a formality when the only response that will be tolerated is the one that is desired. The same goes for our opinion of Traditional versus Modern. The decision has already been made.

If one took a survey of a million women that were asked for a simple yes or no answer to the question "do men have taste in furniture" do you think that all but a tiny minority would answer "no"? It is my opinion that the perception of women is that men, in general, are "knuckle draggers" when it comes to style and fashion. If left to my own devices I would go to work in shorts, tee shirt and sandals or tennis shoes all of the time. Most men feel quite comfortable in a pair of Levis and a flannel shirt, thank you very much.

When contemplating the value of a guy's opinion, my thoughts are taken back to a time when we were looking for the house where we currently reside. My wife actually wanted to take me to visit home after home after home. After seeing four or five of them I told our agent that I would like the screening to be handled by my wife and there are two and only two criteria that I had that were set in stone. The first was that I preferred tile roofs to shake because tile, in general, is more durable and requires less maintenance. My second criteria was that the house be "turn-key", which means that it is completely ready to be lived in and that there are no "fixer upper" projects needed. The solution was simple. My wife picked the style color and layout of the house and the house was of a durable, relatively maintenance-free design.

If we asked men the question: "Would your rather buy living room furniture or watch a football game?", one would not be surprised that men would pick the second choice.  But lets say it really did matter to guys that an opinion was sought. Do you thing your wife would say: "Hey, he really likes this furniture that I hate, I'll change my mind". The reality is that the furniture would be purchased over our objections and we would get used to it in the same way we get used food cooked a certain way.

A critical guy issue is the simple question "Is this the hill I want to die on?" Even if it was a furniture set that I had my heart set on, it would not be worth it for two reasons. It would be totally unreasonable for one to expect that our spouse would actually say "Hey, let's get it even though I hate it". Also, there would likely be another price to pay if we tried to force the issue in another area - the bedroom. Let's use another example - Do you think that a bride-to-be would actually consider your opinion if you picked flowers she hated for her bouquet? In their heart of hearts, most guys just care about where and when then need to show up at the church.

When if comes to finding the bargain, on a living room furniture set, the opinion of the guy is irrelevant if it is contrary of those of our better half. In the words of my mother asking if I wanted vegetables was just a formality. In reality, guys just want a comfortable place to sit down and watch the football game. In the unlikely event that we actually had an opinion on the type of furniture, in very short order we would get used to whatever is there. The wisest of us understands that our choice if contrary, is not really wanted. It is certain that a sofa is not the hill to die on - particulary if that death involves sleeping on it.

Postscript. My wife insists on making it clear that this is not the way I am be treated.