By Ray Klerck

A friend of mine was a devoted Lotto punter who always played the same numbers. One year, his birthday fell on the same Saturday as a mutual friend’s wedding. At the evening reception (the night of which the Lotto was drawn) a small birthday gesture was made by announcing that night’s numbers – his Lotto numbers. He proceeded with champagne for everyone, mouth-kissing of grandparents and microphoned promises to front the wedding. The trouble was, his numbers hadn’t actually come up.

We got the MC to read out the numbers we knew he always played. This afforded him the best hour of his life. When he found out, he left the reception and placed himself under house arrest for the next week. Years later, we all – himself included – consider it the ultimate birthday present ever given, or received. So you see, we men understand the beautiful simplicity of celebrating another man’s birthday with an act of genuine thoughtfulness.

According to the International Council of Man Laws, no man shall ever be required to buy a birthday present for another man. In fact, even remembering your buddy’s birthday is strictly optional. When it’s a noteworthy birthday – such as a 30th – a gift is expected, but only when there’s a free party (or you celebrate at a strip-club or bar of the birthday boy’s choice). And this gift is packaged with its own set of by-laws: it shouldn’t be wrapped, must never be clothing, shouldn’t exceed a day’s wages and should appear to have been bought accidentally. So that hi-tech fishing jacket you know your best mate is lusting after is totally off limits. In fact, it’s an insult to his manhood to get it for him. But anything from the local bottlo en route to his party is probably the perfect gift.

WHY WE CAN’T WIN

We’ve manufactured this warped idea of birthdays largely due to our lack of quality gift-buying experience. Christmas shopping for all 19 of our relatives is done on December 24 in one hour. And aside from getting Mum a few flower-shaped soaps on her special day and a case of Coopers for our Dad, that’s all the present-buying practise we get. So when it comes to picking out a meaningful and thoughtful gift for our wife or girlfriend, our cherries are yet to be popped. When you tell us you don’t want anything, we desperately hope it’s true so our rubbish gifting skills aren’t unwrapped. It’d be far easier if each year you just told us explicitly to get a gift, worth a set amount from a definite store, at least a week in advance. Then we wouldn’t have to panic and buy you a beaded car seat cover from a local BP servo at 9pm the night before, as one man I know once did.

THE PERFECT PRESENT

There is an undeniable pressure to get you something that’s modestly priced (times are tough, after all) and meaningful, but this comes with a gamble of looking cheap. Any grown man suspects that chocolates and flowers scarcely notch above acne creams or a gym membership as your idea of the perfect gift. We know your present should be remembering those Marc Jacobs sunnies you fawned over or pretty much anything that says we know you better than your barista. I once blindfolded my wife and took her for a birthday picnic, during which I gave her a label-maker. Our friends were horrified, but it was our in-joke about her over-organising and neatness OCD.

The label-maker was a risk and she was within her rights to be pissed off. But she wasn’t, and months later, everything in our house had a tag (even my lunch box, which provided months of ammunition for my coworkers).

BAH, HUMBUG

Why do we hate our own birthdays? Well, we’re not blue cheese; ageing is an ailment. Which is why we don’t want a fuss. We’re scarcely open to admitting the tiniest flaw to those closest to us, let alone revelling in it with a cheerful party invite via Facebook. And if we say we don’t want anything it’s because we’re thinking about working as a team to save for a house or a holiday. The long-term takes precedence over the short-term present, even if it’s a killer pair of night-vision goggles. It’s only the mature among us who can accept that surviving another 365-day round-trip around the sun is something worth celebrating. The rest of us just want to act like grown-up kids and squirt beer-filled water pistols at each other. Actually, that’s worth remembering if you’re ever stuck for a present – always use this golden rule: if a 10-year-old boy likes it, a full-grown man will love it. Childish presents make us feel young again. So a hand-carved chess set is a fail, but a giant outdoor plastic chess set – bingo!

SWINGING BOTH WAYS

To be fair, both sexes are prone to the odd birthday gaffe. For example, I’ve been given surfboard wax as a gift by my wife, and once she forgot my birthday altogether, which she says was thanks to the time difference while we were in Vietnam so it didn’t count. I say fair call (even if Hanoi is only four hours behind Aussie Eastern Standard). But this year’s Weber barbecue certainly made for one of the best birthdays yet.

The only difference is that when crappy gifts happen to men we quickly forget, but when we overlook your birthday or give you an ironing board cover we’re never really allowed to. But if our girlfriend or wife ever tricked us into believing we’d won the lottery, that would be unforgivable.