11/30/10
Wise Guys – Do Men Fantasize About Their Future Ideal Love?

photo by clever cupcakes

Advice from three of our guy friends. This week a straight woman asks,”Do any guys have future children’s names picked out? How about a dream house? Wedding plans? In other words, do men fantasize about a future with love in it, just more secretly than women do?

Gay Single Guy (Jay Dyckman): Uh, no.  If that were the case, you would see Groom magazine on newsstands and men would sneak into tuxedo shops on their lunch hour with their best guy pals and try on tacky tuxes, just for kicks!   Generally, men don’t fantasize about the process of obtaining the suburban dream.  But I do think they fantasize about having a normal, functioning family full of love. And a nice car.

Straight Single Guy (Tyler Barnett): I would guess more men have names picked out for their penises then they do for their future children. We just don’t think about that. It isn’t that we don’t want kids, or we want to have kids without names (that would just be confusing) we simply don’t name things we don’t have. Names for men are born when there is something in existence to name. For example, when I first heard the lovely lady in my GPS I named her Susan. I hadn’t considered it before we met. As for houses, yes, every guy has a dream house in his head, and no, it looks nothing like yours. My dream house has a speaker system in the shower, a Jacuzzi in the bedroom and a flat screen on every wall. There would be a nursery but that’s where the pool table and Pac Man Arcade are.
Every guy has a different opinion of finding the love of their life. I figure when I find it I will know it, and until then I am not looking for it. After all, the best things come when you aren’t searching for them.

Straight Married Guy (David Jacobs): Future children’s names? How about “Oh-shit”? With two kids already giving us all that glorious grief we’re definitely done playing the name game. We already have our Barbie dream house/Brooklyn apartment, and our wedding plans were acted on ages ago. In other words, since I’m living a lovefest now, most of my fantasizing these days is about… my life before all this! Back then I fantasized plenty too, though rarely (at least that I recall) about the details of my love-filled future. Which isn’t to say I didn’t want one, I just assumed if I played my cards right it would arrive someday, and meanwhile I had other pleasures to seek. Like most sentient beings my heart occasionally went all a-flutter over someone, but even then I never really gave much thought to the trappings.

Our “wise guys” are a rotating group of contributors, some of whom wish to remain anonymous and some of whom like the attention. This week’s Straight Married Guy is David Jacobs, a NYC-based photographer; our Gay Guy is Jay Dyckman, an LA copywriter; and our Single Straight Guy is Tyler Barnett of Tyler Barnett PR in LA. To ask the guys your own question, click here. To ask the guys your own question, click here.



11 Comments

  1. …. Wow. I fantasize about my ideal love all the time. I don’t really think about kids or a house too much, maybe occasionally, but I think about what my ideal marriage would be like. I usually daydream about getting married to whatever girl I’m with at the time. I’m probably the opposite of most guys and I really want to get married… lol.

  2. Well we must be polar opposites because I have my whole future planed out! From my wife’s dream kitchen to the hardwood finishes, from the baby names to they’re future schools, from my future wedding to family dinners, and even what my wife will look like at 60! I know this is not typical but I love dreaming about my future and my future wife even though ive only been dating my girlfriend for 3
    Months she’s just great and I would love a life with her!

  3. Actually, I have to amend my post. In high school I had a long list of possible names for the MANY children I planned to have. I forgot about it and in the end I didn’t use any of those names. Now that I think about it, I also planned all kinds of things about where I would live (every continent), but it ended up having little to do with reality.

  4. Well, StraightSingleGuy gave me a good laugh! However, I’m not sure all women have plans for their future house and home either. I always knew I wanted children (a husband was a secondary necessity), but I had no plans for their names until I was actually pregnant. I had no opinion on whether or not I would live in a house, although once I had a baby, I wanted a yard. I don’t think I even fantasized that much about what my ideal man would be like. I just crushed out on lots of different guys. Once I’d had relationships, I knew some things I didn’t want, but I didn’t have a list or plan of what I did want.

  5. Far more often than not, I find the Wise Guys to be just that. Insightful and generally spot-on. In this case, however, I think they missed the mark. I’ll agree that not all guys daydream about their ideal partners, children’s names and the rest, but personal experience and preceding comments suggest that at least some do. I know I did. Kid’s names? Minerva Jacque and Merlin Xavier; check. Ideal lifemate? Check. Astoundingly, I actually found her. Tragically, she then found hers. In any event, the dream, or template if you prefer, was there long before.

  6. Umm, Maybe its just my relationship but my boyfriend has always been the first one to bring up marriage, kids, and our future home together. Growing up with older brothers I seen how turned off or scared men can get able these topics. So, I made it point to avoid until needed to be discussed, but with my boyfriend now he started talking marriage and kids a month into! Which in turn kind of scared me. I still have a life to live without the traps of kids!

  7. I can safely say I think this true. The only future my boyfriend talks about is his “man cave” and how it will have a huge TV, surround sound, a fridge, a couch and video games. The topic of kids gets changed quickly and any talk of marriage would just end in anger. haha.

  8. When I fantasize it’s entirely in the opposite direction. In my fantasies, I am single again and screwing several different women.

  9. I don’t like Tyler’s assumption that my dream house looks nothing like his. His dream house actually sounds pretty awesome to me. Add a full bar in the basement, a multi-color lit pool and a full garden in the back that I only have to work on when I want to because I have a gardener for that…and yeah. Don’t make assumptions. If men and women couldn’t have at least similar dreams here and there–not saying about everything–then they wouldn’t be compatible in the long run.

  10. As a male in his mid-20’s with zero experience and no luck with the opposite sex I certainly fantasize/dream a lot about what a possible future ideal love might be like…

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