“It’s not purse… it’s European!“

Few Americans who watched any amount of television in the 1990s can forget Seinfeld. Easily one of the funniest shows ever made, it was Seinfeld who introduced the concept of a purse for men into the American consciousness.

Guys have been carrying bags around since the Stone Age. Tools, weapons, food. Native Americans had satchels. European imperial armies had messenger bags. Don’t forget backpacks, bookbags, et cetera. There have been and are a wide variety of uses.

But somewhere along the way, we have collectively drawn a line between such bags which might be used to transport some object from Point A to Point B, as being entirely different from the concept of a purse. A purse is a female item, popularly. It is a utilitarian piece of equipment, but not in the same connotation.

A purse is generally known as a tool women can use daily to tote around their various necessities, such as mobile phones, makeup, keys, tampons, loose change, gum, needle, perfume, hair clips, candy, and any number of other objects. A common point of humor is the large amount of things some women carry in their purses just because they cannot stand to be without some random possession.

Of course, there are small purses, too. It’s been my experience that these are generally restricted for use almost-exclusively when a woman is dressed up for some formal social occassion. It serves primarly as a fashion accessory. But it’s not normally the purse of choice because it’s just too small to carry everything she wants to drag along everywhere she goes.

Given that the accepted cultural understand that purses are a chick thing, the majority of guys are loathe to be associated with said object because it might call into question their manliness. Extraterrestrials need look no further than at some young couple where the lady has pratical need to ask the guy to hold her purse for a minute. His reaction is that of one being offered the plague.

Note: There is a side benefit to this behavior. Women generally feel safe about being able to maintain a shroud of mystery over the contents of her purse as whatever man lucky enough to be around her would be highly unlikely to ever violate the sanctity of purse privacy in order to pry into the bowels of it’s bottomlessness, for fear of being outed as a closet purse fetishist.

To the girls, this whole fear of purses is laughably ridiculous and/or pathetically cute, depending on the occassion. I secretly suspect many women might share the desire that their man grow up enough to not worry about how strangers might judge him for hanging on to a pleather bag for a brief time. And some men do.

Have you ever seen them? Sure, they’re older and more mature. Grown ups. Adults. Isn’t it wonderful that your lover and partner has outgrown his youth and blossomed into an open-minded, liberal guy? If only that were true.

You clearly didn’t see them well enough. Standing around with your purse loosely in their hands — an easy target for any pursesnatcher — because they don’t want anyone around to think they might be attached to such an object. More often than not, these men have some gray hair. They never look other men in the eye.

Dejectedly waiting out this purgatory until you come back to claim what isn’t his, he’ll stand there looking miserable to anyone who can read body language. Sheepishly rubbing a toe into the floor, eyes cast downward, one hand in his pocket, mumbling numbers to himself as he counts the seconds. Ever notice how fast he gives it back to you, upon your return?

That’s love. His sacrifice for you.

While you think he’s a big boy now, it’s only half true. He’s only big enough to be able to bear the excrutiating humiliation of possessing the fearsome purse for an eternity of suffering just because he doesn’t want to see you roll your eyes at him in disgust. You’ve just become slightly more important to him than the random strangers passing by.

It’s a struggle. And an accomplishment.

In the Seinfeld episode, the main character is a man who is carrying a small satchel. Bag. Sack. Pack. Something just big enough to hold his wallet, keys, and something else small. The humor bit is his then-girlfriend who teases him mercilessly for being so unmanly as to carry around what she sees as essentially being a purse.

Obviously, he stumbles over himself to justify why he’s got a man purse, but mostly all he can muster are limp denials that it isn’t a purse at all. Trying very much to defend some semblance of masculinity, he makes the appeal that this bag is part of a new forward-looking trend for sophisticated men. Millions laughed at his desperate last-ditch explanation that it was “European!”

Of course, it’s a cultural gag. In America, when we want to posture some new product as being fancy, exclusive, or savvy we tend to package such things as being “European.”

What’s hilarious to me is that marketers on the Old Continent reverse the tactic. Suddenly all the products Europeans should view as modern, quality, and hip are pitched as being “American.”

It works, too.

So began this American misconception that European men commonly carry purses. It continues over a decade later. And it brushed up against me when Leilouta shared the contents of her purse and subsequently snickeringly invited me to show off my european man purse to the blogosphere.

Grin if you want, but it’s now my turn to defend my ample quantities of testosterone by declaring I do not carry a murse. Nossir. As I grunt paleolithicly and scratch myself in forbidden places, I’m proud to confidently set the record straight that I’m something of a manly man who carries naught but a wallet.

What, praytell, do I keep inside it? Disappointingly few items. My wallet holds a Texas driver’s license, a Visa card, a business card of a Brasov friend whom I’d call in the event of being kidnapped by maurauding bands of gypsies, and a handtorn piece of paper with the scribbled email address for the talented brother of a remembered Booterstown girlie along with phone numbers for a close friend in Cluj, a brilliant pal in Bulgaria, and my personal psychologist.

Since every Romanian categorically believes all Americans are fabulously wealthy beyond the limits of imagination, I would be hard-pressed to dash their fragile beliefs. Not being one to disappoint, I therefore sometimes carry proof that I am indeed a multimillionaire.

Interestingly, I’ll point out that the whole man purse phenomenon is actually an American thing now. It seems there has been a brief period in which some Americans (under the delusion that since purses are the new European fashion statement for wealthy and sophisticated men) have been snatching up very expensive leather shoulder bags from well known luxury brands.

I will testify that while the sight of a man with a purse-like object is still rare, one is infinitely more likely to encounter ambivalent hormone displays in the United States rather than the European Union. Hate to burst the bubble, my American friends, but that purse y’all carry ain’t European. It’s just you believing the hype.

Whatever you do, let’s try to all agree on terminology. You can label such a thing as a purse if you really feel the need to tacitly insult the guy carrying it. However, you should never use the phrases man bag or man sack as those carry entirely different sexual implications outside the scope of this post.

Satchel, overnight bag, carryall, commuter bag, messenger bag, haversack. These terms are all acceptable as not violating the manly code when discussing one’s man purse. Be aware there are some lame euphemisms to avoided, such as valise, possibles bag, sash pouch, hip bag, fanny pack, attache, clutch, pochette, and bandolier. Yuck.

If you’ve got the chops to handle the occassional missive of our post-nascent social media, then I would tag The Egyptian’s Wife, Stingo, GangstaGyrl, Lost in America, and RamPage to consider throwing open the hallowed doors hiding your personal secrets. Show us what’s in your purse!

“But, Romerican, I’ve seen you carrying a murse!”

Oh, oh, that. Heh. No, no, you misunderstand. See, uh, that’s a very functional piece of professional equipment, not some man purse. It’s a daguerreotype slinger from Adorama. Really. I love it. It holds everything I need and I couldn’t live without.

Oh. Hey! No, wait a minute now. Aw, c’mon… don’t look at me that way…

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 14th, 2006 at 12:55 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.