Negotiating with testosterone

We are upgrading Awesome Hubbys car. we have had the same one since 2003, and now that we have moved closer to the city he is now required to drive two hours a day, so he needs a better car. Needs one.

So negotiations have started. Within our relationship I tend to be the realist and he is the one with big dreams. We make a great team, he encourages me to take risks, whilst I stop him from taking too many risks. We tend to balance each other out, and appreciate that we are exactly what the other needs. Kind of like a yinyang thing you could say.

Except for when it comes to cars. My motivating factors when it comes to cars include best for the environment, gets from Point A to Point B, and it’s a nice colour. Awesome Hubbys motivations are slightly less, shall we say, tangible.

So Awesome Hubby wants a BIIIIIG car. I ask him why, WHY do we need a BIIIIIIG car? We don’t go four wheel driving. We have a family car. Why do we need a BIIIIIG car?

He says its a family car. We can go camping. It makes sense. It’s safe.

I politely suggest a slightly less expensive car. He toils and troubles over his options, with my occasionally putting in suggestions and opinions, gently, so that he doesn’t think I am trying to spoil his fun. We come up with a few different options, each varying in degree of desirability and sensibility.

So I broach the idea of the sensible option. Spacious, affordable, professional, economical, suits his image as a business man.

He puts forward his idea of his most desirable option. Blokey, masculine, fast, power. All those factors that make very little sense unless you are filled with testosterone.

Employing my most reasonable tone, I said to him, ‘OK, I thought you wanted a second family car, and does this car reeeeaaaalllly match the professional image you are trying to project, as a successful, well respected podiatrist?’ I really thought this was my secret weapon, the thing that would persuade him to see my view, how I would get MY way.

Then he pulled out HIS secret weapon… ‘But do I reeeaallly have to fit into a box? Do I have to not have something I really want in order to fit into everyone elses idea of what I should be?’

Straight away I was disgusted with myself, having flashbacks to my own struggle with fitting into a box, and my conviction that everyone should have the courage to stand up, break the mould and do what they choose irrespective of expectation. I backed off and decided to fully support him in the purchase of his vile blokey car. Either he thinks more like me than I thought he did, or he is very cunning!

SO if he gets his blokey car does that mean I can get dreadlocks?