Redditor forsakenneverland wanted to hear some good ideas for presents for gents.
"Men of Reddit, what is the male equivalent of flowers as a gift?"
Money. I will always take money as my flowers.
Deli Trip
Hungry Late Show GIF by The Late Show With Stephen ColbertGiphy"A good sandwich. I was on my way to visit my girlfriend 3 hours away this weekend, and she called and asked if I wanted a grilled cheese waiting for me when I got there. What an exciting gift that was."
Jefffahfffah
Favorites
"When me and my wife were just starting out, I was talking to her on my way home from work about how I was so tired I was probably gonna skip dinner cause I didn't want to cook and didn't have the money to eat out. I don't know when she did it, but when I got home, 2 minutes later a pizza guy showed up with my favorite pizza."
"Inside the box said something like 'I know it's not that healthy, but it's better than not eating.' No one had ever done something like that for me before. Not just the gift of food, but that it was because she didn't want me to skip a meal either. She cared about my well being."
snopuppy
1000% nicer...
"I work as a first responder. One day we were sitting on the truck, stuck in traffic, in the downtown area. A woman walked up to my window and handed me a single rose, smiled, and told me to have a nice day. I didn't even know how to respond to that. But I'll be damned if my day didn't get 1000% nicer after that. I'm in my 40s. That was the only time I remember ever being given flowers, and I regularly think about how nice it felt. Most guys don't get random flowers. Guys should get more random flowers."
Archimedeeznuts
Necessities
"10mm socket."
Cyclist007
"Nothing says I love you like a good terminal screwdriver."
mabye_iron_man
"My GF just dropped my 11mm into my engine bay never to be seen again. That's like taking flowers away from someone."
Lycantiger20
Hold Me
Hugs Love GIF by joeyahlbumGiphy"Hugs."
Dralion2k
"Yep. Even one would be great. Not sure if this sounds pathetic but I haven't been hugged in forever and I really want a long hug from anyone."
emoskeleton_
Just hold me close. I'll take it. Lasts longer than a rose.
Sexy
sexy man GIFGiphy"Literally any acknowledgement of the dudes physical being. Not sure if it's just my experience or if it's a general thing but any acknowledgement of any part of myself will keep me going for a week."
AHorsesSpoonInABasin
True love language...
"Food, homemade."
Zarniwoooop
"Agreed. My daughter always makes me brownies for Father's day. Best present ever."
statisticus
"I’m a woman, and I’d prefer homemade food to flowers. Food is a true love language. When you care enough to prepare something special for someone, you’re truly showing how you feel."
StrangerKatchoo
Good Trade
"I bought my wife an expensive ring for our 8 year anniversary. She bought me a £18 switch game. Good trade I think. Male equivalent to flowers is probably money spent on a hobby."
Jamesxxxiii
"Or permission to spend money on the hobby. My wife has no idea about my hobbies. She’s tried a couple of times but there’s a lot that an outsider wouldn’t consider. But if she says to me 'I’ve found some money in the budget, reckon you can spend $50?' I know exactly what I’m getting!"
"Or even better: take him shopping. Tell him you want to get him something for his hobby but you don’t understand it enough. So ask him to take you to whichever store is involved, ask about it, point to another item and ask why his choice is better. He’ll start budgeting engagement rings!"
Conchobar8
A Hot Second
"Honestly, the only time I've ever felt like how I imagine others feel when they receive flowers, I had talked to a friend who lives far away the evening before about how I was having a hard time, and then she just turned up at my door to give me a hug before she had to go catch a bus to her parent's house. Between the utter surprise at her of all people turning up at my door, to how needed that hug was, I was completely in love with her for a hot second there."
NomenNescio13
Classics
keanu reeves flowers GIFGiphy"My wife buys me flowers sometimes, and I really like it."
Transvaal_Kampioen
"Yeah, I agree that the male version of flowers is flowers."
TheMooseIsBlue
Flowers always say it best, but the other ideas work.
What would you add to this list? Let us know in the comments below.
However, not everything goes according to plan.
Being witnesses to a sad proposal, having flowers rejected due to skepticism, and a painful attempt at a strip tease were just some examples of botched declarations of love when Redditor Nzui_254 asked:
"What romantic gesture did you try to make that instantly and horribly backfired on you?"
The Crushed Secret Admirer
"Wrote a letter to a crush on Valentine's Day. Signed it as his Secret Admirer and left it in his locker. Watched him open it. Still reading, he starts to approach me. I tense up."
"He goes, 'Its402Am...look at this...it's from Angeline. She wants to get back with me!'"
"No idea how the discussion of the letter went down but they totally got back together."
– Its402am
The Love Concussion
"Took a date to a club; tried to do the tilt back while I hold her back, I dropped her. Married 7 years now..."
What Happens When You Over-Share
"Came to my wife for a hug...started out with an awww that's so sweet. Then I made the mistake of over sharing that I had asked one kid to watch a movie and another to play a game and no one wanted to do anything. Then she pipes up, oh so I'm third?! Fuuuuuuuuuuuuu*k."
Sad Witnesses
"I surprised my wife on Valentine's Day with a dinner at one of my wife's favorite restaurants that's really hard to get into. It was a crazy expensive three course dinner and the food was amazing. However... we got seated in a corner of the restaurant with our table and one other table that was about two feet away. We we were seated about the same time as the couple next to us. After about 5 minutes the guy gets down on one knee and my wife and I being 2 feet away are basically front row and start to clap... but the girl bursts into tears and says no. They then proceeded to eat dinner for the next hour, both crying the whole time. My wife and I pretty much ate our meal in awkward silence and couldn't really leave as we had to wait for each course."
Wrong Window
"My SO and I had a fight in college. So to apologize, the next day, I printed out a bunch of cute/funny memes and taped them to his dorm window."
"I texted him, told him to look out his window. 'Why?'"
"It was the wrong window. I was tampering with a strangers window. And probably freaked them the f'ck out. When I explained to my SO my f'ck up and we hurriedly went to take them off the window, the blinds were open lmao."
Mocking Chivalry
"In a thunderstorm I offered the girl I was on a date with my rain jacket (as a true gentleman should); we then both ran to her car. When we got there she was totally dry (fantastic rain jacket) and I was dripping wet from head to toe."
"She laughed at me for being so stupid as to give my rain jacket away. We broke up because she thought I was so dumb."
"Suppose I did dodge a bullet there."
No More Flowers Just Because
"Randomly bought my wife flowers. Big mistake. First thing she said was what had I done wrong, if I was buying her flowers, I must have done something wrong. No amount of having done nothing wrong could convince her. Oh, well lesson learned."
It Didn't Go Down Well
"I took my Ex to a pub (yes im british) and we were going to have a lovely pub lunch."
"she ordered the chicken in white wine sauce, i had the lamb... the lamb was raw and the chicken in white wine sauce hadn't been cooked properly so it was basically raw chicken and alcohol in a bowl."
"i complained and got a refund with the guy behind the bar saying 'yeah, its the cheifs last day and he was being let go' and followed on with 'his mate behind the bar over heard the conversation and told him before the shift, we have been handing out refunds left and right'"
"so i dropped my Ex off at hers and had to speed all the way home for what is commonly known as a 'photo finish' to get my a** on the toilet before all holy hell fell out of my god forsaken hoop, so head in sink vomiting and my arse leaking like a sieve, needless to say my grand romantic gesture lead to 2 people having the worst food poisoning of the young adult lives... the place closed down almost over night and i believe is under new management now."
The Note
"Spontaneously bought flowers to be delivered to my new wife while I was at work. When I got home she was fuming and had obviously been crying. Instead of a hug like I had been picturing all day, she greeted me by throwing a handful of ashtray smelling greens and stomping out of the room between half packed moving boxes."
"Turns out the driver had smoked cigarettes on the way over and besides the smoke smell there were some ashes on the bouquet. More awful though, I had asked that the note say 'I'm happy for the wonderful time we've known each other.' The note actually said 'It's been nice knowing you.'"
Love-struck Teen
"I wrote a poem for a girl when I was in high school at a summer camp (it was like a 4 week camp and idk what I was thinking honestly - lovestruck teenager). Her room was below and adjacent to mine and and my neighbor (directly above her room) happened to be somebody she talked to about things (like a brother relationship, he had a girlfriend at the time) and she decided to talk to my neighbor about the poem I gave her (they basically opened their windowsand talked up and down to each other). I overheard the entire conversation, and she pretty much thought I was a good guy but made it clear she wasn't interested at all like that with anybody right now. She pretty much stopped talking to me after that, didn't even explain herself, just avoided me. I probably would have been more hurt if I hadn't heard the conversation though honestly. The neighbor was a great guy, good friend about it with me though. She and another guy were pretty much making out though by the end of the week. I think it gave her the courage to make up her mind about things."
Strip Tease Fail
"Tried to do a strip tease for my boyfriend. Stepped fully on his foot in heels, and kicked him fully across the face as a grand finale. I was so mortified that I cried. He was a jerk though, so in the long run, 10/10 would do again."
Cat's Meow
It wasn't a romantic gesture in my case. My girlfriend was upset that her cat died. So, I tried to cheer her up by making her laugh. She had this rubber popper thing. I put it on my forehead and got it stuck. Suuuppppeer stuck. Eventually, I pulled it off. Her laughing face turned to shock when she saw that the popper created a huge purple bruise right in the middle of my forehead. I had to go to work and high school with this huge purple splotch on my head for weeks. It did make her forget about her cat for a few minutes though.
Rom-coms
Grand public or some rom-com movie-style gesture. I got broken up with after pulling one of those in college with my bf. As i grew older, I realized the negative implications of such overly romantic actions.
Though I'll admit, I do secretly hope to find at least one affectionate partner in the future.
People frequently confuse "grand" and "public" with stuff like this. "Grand" doesn't mean a proclamation on high about your undying love. "Grand" means something that is extremely meaningful.
I read about a guy who met his S/O someplace with bolts (can't remember exactly what. Maybe they were both working on cars or something at the time?) and so when he decided to propose he had a jeweler take a hex nut and turn it into a pair of rings. That is grand, IMO. Something that demonstrated an actual, substantial connection.
Grandpa
Spent $100 on a toy train set to put around the tree for Christmas, since my wife's talked about how there used to be one at her long-deceased grandpa's house.
Me, being dense as a rock, thought she missed the train.
Nope, she misses her grandpa, and she just so happened to see him mostly on Christmas, where he had the train set up.
Barney
How I Met Your Mother Comedy GIF by LaffGiphy
The Naked Man. no story needed. most likely the worst possible thing that could happen happened.
So it's true: 2 out of 3.
As a present for my then-boyfriend (now husband) for a significant event, I cooked all day and made lobster thermidor then chartered a night blue fishing trip. In our excitement, we both forgot he gets seasick if he loses the horizon.
Sun went down and he spent all 4 hours of trip chumming lobster into the ocean.
I didn't catch a bluefish.
Labor pains
Made this huge plan to do all these things while my ex was giving birth to our son to keep her relaxed and keep things calm and smooth.
Did literally none of it. Stood there like an idiot in a total stupor, while she was like: "Hey, you gonna be ok?"
The nurse was even like: "If you're going to pass out just go, because we aren't going to be stepping over you."
Surprise?
Tried to arrange a surprise party. If you're going to do this, don't do it by pretending your forgot her birthday.
Taking a stand
My husband had been working long hours, so I thought I would surprise him by putting together our new tv stand on my own.
I have never built anything by myself. I am terrible at interpreting directions for constructing things. But I had some really misplaced confidence in my abilities. Idk if I thought love and good intentions would guide me or some BS.
He got home late at night, and there were pieces of tv stand all through the living room. I was close to tears, had blisters on my hands, and was aggressively trying to get a screw to tighten that wouldn't budge. I didn't realize that I had stripped it. Our dog and cat could barely find any place to sit in the living room because of the mess I had made.
My husband was so upset and exasperated. He sat on the floor and had to finish putting it together. Kept asking me why I would do this when I know I'm not good at this stuff. Told him I was trying to do something nice and romantic. Lmao he was up for a while after that trying to fix my mistakes.
Ended up just making his night harder, so definitely not my best idea.
I would have appreciated the effort
Ewww David....
GiphyMy fiancee is a florist. She often sends me ridiculous messages she's been asked to attach to flower orders. My personal favorite so far:
"Sorry I knocked up your friend.
From: David."
Brutal.
We used to have a card that had a picture of a dog in a doghouse in it, used that one WAY too many times. Once someone had me write "sorry, but I'm choosing her. You can have the kids." Thought that was pretty brutal. I used the doghouse card, thought it was appropriate.
Yummy?
Giphy"Thanks for letting me borrow your deodorant!" It was an edible arrangement.
This sounds like something I'd do to prank my older brother.
Sorry Girl.
Not me but my florist mom; She had lady come in and get a decent bouquet and watched as she spent 20 minutes finding the perfect sympathy card just to write "Sorry you're such a dumb b***h."
Apparently it was for her sister; my mom, who has 3 sisters, could total.
Farewell....
"When you receive these I will no longer be alive"
Oh geez. My dad died on Feb. 1 of cancer, and he preordered Valentines flowers for my mom. He didn't put this on the card, but I hope that the person who did was in a similar situation and not suicide. Either way, it's a brutal reminder.
Pretty Please....
GiphyThis question is so perfect for me but these are the two I can remember most recently:
-"I love you, my dirty hooker" and "please unblock me on Facebook."
All Things Love & $$$....
I have quite a few... one of the most memorable was having a guy come in to drop off his note for the flowers we were delivering for a friends birthday. The note turned out to be a 6 page letter and apparently they are only "just friends" because she had turned him down before.
Then a couple weeks later it's almost Valentine's Day and he comes by again to order flowers for her and drop off another lengthy letter. We congratulate him because we thought that they must be together now but nope, she has a boyfriend now and he still wanted to send her flowers on Valentine's Day.
And one that was outrageous but not exactly because of the writing on the message card but what was in the message. It was on 5/20, and it was significant because he had 52 hundred dollar bills which he wanted us to wrap each individual rose in the bouquet with. He said he wanted to show his girlfriend how much he loved her and he knew she also loved money. So he wanted his girlfriend to be able to puck out each individual bill and be able to get the message of his love.
We have done money bouquets before but with significantly less money. So we told him we would do it only if he stood there and watched because we weren't comfortable with that amount of money and that it would take at least an hour, but he didn't really have the patience to wait that long so he just ended up paying for the 99 roses and we never knew how he ended up presenting the money.
The Cover-Up
My husband likes to send me flowers to work for Valentines Day with awkward messages knowing my coworkers will gush and ask me what it says. This year's card just said "Epstein didn't kill himself." It was in old lady handwriting so I can only imagine what the florist was thinking.
Whoopsies....
GiphyNot really a card message (though he might have written that on a card eventually), but while I was working as a florist a guy asked me to help select what kind of flower he should get to tell his girlfriend "Sorry I cheated on you". So, that.
Forget u, ciao....
So many amazing cards have been sent, anywhere from Puppy-play related cards (Look it up) to a singular guy sending 3 different arrangements to his wife, girlfriend, and mistress but the one that takes the cake is from a girl to a guy:
"Hey Screwface, Thanks for all the drunk messaging and crap; if you like me, then stop being a damn coward and make a decision bro. Forget u, ciao (Insert girl's name here)"
EDIT: SINGULAR guy (being tired is fun). Satoux3
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