The Many Splendored Thing

Bear with me as I get this off my chest.

I tune into an enthusiast website or two. Knives, guns, cars, and ever since I was dragged kicking and screaming into things like cell phones and routers and printers that work without wires, those places as well. But knives and firearms are my favorites. So I put up with the postings that...that...that feature...LOVE.

Every. Last. One. In every last one the inevitable "what's your favorite thingamajig thread" arises and men chime in on which knife or handgun or rifle or shotgun or car they favor most. Don't have to scroll down far if at all. In 90% of ALL postings, everywhere, someone professes his 'love' for an inanimate object.

"I love my Sebenza!"

"I love my Mossberg 500!"

"I love my Ruger GP!"

"I love my new Mustang!"

"I love my new Rolex!"

Men.

Who 'love' steel and plastic and aluminum and carbon fibers and titanium and extra-extra-fine continuous monocrystalline diamond impregnated honing stones. Even saying diamond-impregnated honing stones is pretentious enough without expressing the strongest emotion a person can feel just to make sure someone else is listening and damned well impressed.

I love my wife, my family, my country, my Marine Corps. There was one dog I loved, the best dog I ever had but even were he the worst I still just really loved him. 

And I thought that was strange. Love isn't something that is measured by degrees, no matter what the soap operas say. You can't love something a little. Just like you can't hate something just a smidgen. Love is unconditional trust and feeling and commitment. The guy that gets on a knife board and expresses love for a Spyderco Native in CPM S30V Stainless then tells his wife he loves her too has something seriously, seriously wrong with his priorities. 

And this has gone so far, you know what? Make an entry of your own about what particular toy rings YOUR bell, and DON'T say you love it, and I guaran-frickin'-tee someone will call you out for a lukewarm review.

"Well, if you don't really love the thing then it can't be all that smokin', eh?"

No. Not at all. Preference. Ranking. Most of all, importance. Grown men do not really love cold steel or hot bikes. Those with poor educations began the trend and those with impressive educations fell into the trap, the peer pressure, the need to hop aboard the love.

Once you've gone and done it, once you've admitted love, then what's next? The S&W 500 Magnum is as important as your daughter? Your Mom? But since there isn't anything beyond love, nothing above it on the pecking order of absolutes, you've laid the groundwork for never actually loving anything because you love everything. And really now, how hard is it to express appreciate without going over the cliff?

"To me, this is the penultimate Bowie Knife. Without a shadow of a doubt, it does everything a Bowie should do and better than any other Bowie I've ever heard of. Jim himself would prize this thing."

OR...

"I just opened a box from Knifeworks and yes! My new K-Bar Bowie! I LOVE it!"

I guess saying you "love-it" is the easy way out. No need to describe anything, because love, after all, says everything.

Oh and before I forget. The new laptop? Love it. 

See?

Could that, for a man, get any more ghey?