Is this a man thing?

[house]

My DH fails at details. Repeatedly. For example, he went to the computer store to get a new charger for our laptop and won't take the old charger with him. I request that he take the original but no, he won't listen to me. 20 min later he called from the store, "Can you give me the serial #/model#"?  He did this again not long ago with something else and I didn't care enough to remember what the product was. We finished painting two walls in our loft and ran out of paint. Sent DH to go get new paint and of course I tell him to take the old can with him. Does he? Of course not. He finished the remaining wall with the new paint. DS wrote on our dining room wall so I asked hey if you have any paint leftover can you touch up please? He did. Yesterday I looked at the paint and thought.. something is not right. I can SEE the new paint on and it's not blending in. Oh maybe because it's wet, when it's dry it will be ok. No. The paint is dry and it still doesn't look the same!! UGH! So I run upstairs to look at the cans. Sure enough, he screwed up. He got the color right but he didn't buy the same finish. Sigh! I am just gonna have to do everything myself if I want everything to be done right!! We bought cashmere finish and he brought home FLAT finish home this time.

[housegeek]

I think its a personality thing. Ive met very detail oriented men and very not detailed oriented women

[treedimensional]

Yes it's a man thing. They're effing HELPLESS creatures and cannot anything without prodding. Sometimes I'm embarrassed that I am sexually attracted to them.

[house]

LOL! treedimensional! I gently asked him afer he got home from church, "Can you tell the difference between the two cans?" LOL! He looked so confused! Then he saw the label and told me the store clerk screwed up. He asked them to give exactly the same thing and apparently the girl looked up the previous order.

[Deleted]

Apr 20, 2014 11:21:22 GMT -5 housegeek said:

I think its a personality thing. Ive met very detail oriented men and very not detailed oriented women

Yeah. My H is very detailed oriented and has the memory of an ox. He applies it to everything which can be equally annoying.

I have a good memory for details, but I'm very "Nobody going to see that in the corner" when it comes to details sometimes. It depends on how important the "Details" are to me at the time.

[jloww]

My husband does this stuff, but he lacks a lot of common sense, bless his heart.

[magdala]

My love will get lost in his own head sometimes. For example, he will be sent to the store for half and half and come home with heavy cream. Close, but....

[southpoint]

I have the opposite problem. My DH is almost too detailed oriented. He delays getting started with projects till he works out, and reworks, every detail.

[sailorgray]

Apr 20, 2014 19:50:11 GMT -5 southpoint said:

I have the opposite problem. My DH is almost too detailed oriented. He delays getting started with projects till he works out, and reworks, every detail.

This is mine. I fly by the seat of my pants, so I probably drive him crazy.

[emoflamingo]

Omg this stuff drives me crazy. I can send my H to the store with a list and it's specific. Last time I had 2 recipes I needed sour cream for so I asked for 2 small containers since I don't always stick to my menu. Well he brought home one big one. Or I want a specific brand and he gets the right brand but wrong kind. I should be happy he goes to the store for me but dang man. Read the list!!

The lack of planning does too.

[house]

See, the funny thing is my DH is very smart. IMO he is more book smart than common sense smart. LOL! He is like a walking encyclopedia of useless knowledge. Play any movie sound for 3 seconds and he knows what movie it is (ETA: without looking!). But ask him where anything important is...he is like.. um, I don't know. But he can be very detail oriented when he wants to be, just not all the time. He is my former co-worker from 2003 and his desk used to be always neat and clean at work. At home, he is nothing like that! Putting obvious things away every day is hardly ever his concern. Don't get me wrong, he can be very focused. He wanted to get 3 things done this weekend and got all of them done: painting, mowing the lawn and fixing the gutter.

[house]

Apr 20, 2014 20:28:46 GMT -5 emoflamingo said:

Omg this stuff drives me crazy. I can send my H to the store with a list and it's specific. Last time I had 2 recipes I needed sour cream for so I asked for 2 small containers since I don't always stick to my menu. Well he brought home one big one. Or I want a specific brand and he gets the right brand but wrong kind. I should be happy he goes to the store for me but dang man. Read the list!!

The lack of planning does too.

This drives me insane! DH hardly ever plans anything. I have yet to hear the words "let's do XYZ next weekend"!

[Deleted]

My H isn't detail oriented either.  He can also be rather clueless about things too. I think it does depend on the personality, but is more of a man thing than a woman thing.

[mrsreynolds4]

My DH would totally do the paint thing. He wouldn't call about which 'X' to buy if he forgot - he'd just grab something and assume it'd work.

He's very good with details on anything related to work (engineering), math, music, and model trains. He'll admit that he doesn't focus on details on everything else (especially the house) because it's just not important to him.

[TBM]

I used to think that it was a guy thing, (at least to some extent), then I started working with my business partner. She is exactly like my H, except that he is better at planning and details at work...I joke he uses it all up there.

The lack of planning/detail stuff drives me crazy about both of them, but I am well aware that my thought process, questions and attention to detail drives them crazy.

[bunnymendelbaum]

My DH is too much of a perfectionist on some things, but he'll do the same thing as OPs. He will go to the store completely unprepared and come home with the wrong thing.

I don't think it's a matter of being detail oriented, it's a matter of not thinking ahead. Dude literally cannot plan. I'm the opposite. I tend to want to rush through the current task because I'm already thinking of the next.

[emoflamingo]

Apr 20, 2014 21:03:15 GMT -5 house said:

See, the funny thing is my DH is very smart. IMO he is more book smart than common sense smart. LOL! He is like a walking encyclopedia of useless knowledge. Play any movie sound for 3 seconds and he knows what movie it is (ETA: without looking!). But ask him where anything important is...he is like.. um, I don't know. But he can be very detail oriented when he wants to be, just not all the time. He is my former co-worker from 2003 and his desk used to be always neat and clean at work. At home, he is nothing like that! Putting obvious things away every day is hardly ever his concern. Don't get me wrong, he can be very focused. He wanted to get 3 things done this weekend and got all of them done: painting, mowing the lawn and fixing the gutter.

HAHA omg yes. My Dad and brother are the same way. My H searched for his wedding ring one day for like 10 minutes. So I got fed up and cleaned the built-in (where he usually puts it) and the first thing I did was pick up my purse (I sit it there because the kiddo likes to dig in it) and there it was. My purse was sitting on a photo album and the ring was next to the album but hidden under my purse. It happens with stuff like that often.

[mrs.jacinthe]

R is the exact opposite. He's VERY detailed - to the point where it's occasionally tedious. In the above circumstance, he would have sent me, instead. LOL. But as regards any DIY project - he'll plan, replan, and plan again, then CAREFULLY proceed to overthink everything to the point that the project takes 3x longer than if he'd just gotten started and dealt with the issues as they came up. I attribute this to his engineering background. I, on the other hand, ascribe to the "good enough!" point of view at least 98% of the time.