What are men afraid of which might live in a hand bag

[mansneverhot]

I've noticed that the men in my life, past and present, have been consistently frightened of the contents of a handbag. They act with a level of fear I have never seen applied to e.g. a drawer or coat pocket when tasked with retrieving an item, and prefer to bring the entire sodding bag rather than take a quick look inside it for the required item. Most seem to cite "privacy" as the reason for this irrational behaviour but I notice they do not treat their own bags or those of other men as such private and sacred safe spaces.

My current theories are as follows:

• They can't be bothered to actually look, this is a carefully crafted technique to transfer responsibility of producing the coveted item to the handbag-owner

• They believe that special female secrets are hidden in handbags, something which might spoil the mystique of femininity for them. Perhaps a magical device containing alluring pheremones, a mind reading device which is how we can tell the difference between a real poo and a facebook toilet break, or some kind of alien technology which could burn their eyeballs on sight.

• Tampons?? Are they afraid of tampons?? How could they be afraid of a new tampon - unless they are also afraid of mice. However, no amount of assurance that I do NOT KEEP DIRTY TAMPONS in my bag has managed to soothe a man into acting like a normal person looking in a fucking handbag instead of an awkward husk who can't make direct eye contact with the bag's innards.

• Something else? Perhaps they're afraid to find a sex toy - a 12" dildo which makes them look like a withered pickle, an emotional trauma they may never recover from?

Any other theories?

But it's not laziness though is it? Surely it's less effort to retrieve something from the bag than to cart the whole duvet size with wheels bag itself, then return it?

I'm wondering if this is a throwback to women not mentioning periods ever. I couldn't give a shit whether dh found a tampon and neither would he. But my mum wouldn't have liked it at all and my granny, well, such things were never ever mentioned. People's attitudes to menstruation have changed but there are some leftover hangups that people have forgotten the reasons for.

TBF I don't actually encourage DP to go through my bags as they make excellent hiding places for things like birthday cards and presents so there's no point really.

DH if asked to go and get something in a bag of mine sticks in his entire arm, and then without using his eyes for who knows what reason, sort of swirls his hand around like a magician looking for something in his silk magic bag. Naturally he never finds the thing in question, and I wind up a seething mass of latent hysteria grabbing the volley bag back and finding the thing in a single pluck.

So we’ve compromised, DH will stay far away from a bag and I will look for things I want myself.

if my husband wants something from in my bag ill tell him just get it im busy and you can see the fear come over his face, he gets so flustered and you can see his hands wanting to flap in a panic, me laughing and saying just grab it ffs most likely doesnt help

If I ask my husband to get me something from my bag, he gets me the thing from my bag, because he's normal. How odd that people are so precious over a bag. It's just a bag - what on earth do you keep in them that no one can see

I think your dh is the one that isn't normal on this. Everyone else says they don't go in bags.

My DP doesn't either, brings me the bloody bag every time. He has started putting things in there though when we go out. Although he will carry it too.