This love of tools most men have is an unusual thing. Or is it? Why men love tools is a question that goes back to the invention of fire. To be honest, I haven’t met many guys who aren’t absolutely thrilled to come over and check out the latest power tool we’re testing. They love lending an opinion as to how something might be made better through the addition of more power, better blades, greater torque… You get the idea. Now, this phenomenon varies in level, but it’s fairly universal. Unless, of course, you don’t like power tools…I guess that’s OK…but why are you even reading this?
And, of course, we’ve met plenty of women who love tools and who would put us to shame. But this article is about the particular eccentricities of why men love their tools…
This is Why Men Love Tools
For the rest of us, and certainly the people in my hometown, tools evoke a certain level of adrenaline that simply must be satisfied. When we try out a new tool and put it through our rigorous testing procedures it’s almost an event. Friends come over to watch—and sometimes even participate.
And when we do tool comparisons—forgettaboudit. I might as well be hosting a fashion show starring swimsuit models…even though I don’t think we’re allowed to do that anymore.
Interviewing Various Men on Their Love of Power Tools
But what drives this love of tools? I mean, it’s just a motor attached to some kind of spinning apparatus. Nothing terribly special or amazing, right? I asked a few of my friends and colleagues (in several cases this is the same thing) their opinions on the following question:
“What is so great about tools, and why do you enjoy testing new models so much?”
I got a lot of varied responses – here are just some of them:
“I play a lot of Gears of War on Xbox… so when I get a chance to actually hold a real chainsaw and plunge it through a giant piece of timber why wouldn’t I want to live out one of my fantasies?!”
“There’s simply no natural place I can sink 100 nails into a piece of pressure-treated wood in under 5 minutes. I don’t get to do that on the jobsite.”
“OK. Here I am. There’s the wood. It’s completely embedded with nails and I’m about to cut into it with a circular saw. It’s not my blade, and I don’t have to worry about the consequences should the motor burn up on me. In fact, I’m daring it to burn up. Where else can you try stuff like this?”
“You told me I could play with three of the newest cordless drills and run them through a battery of tests. I figured this is about the best way to get my hands on some new tools and see which ones really were the best.”
“Are you kidding? Honestly, why are you even asking this question? Is there something wrong with you?”
Hands-on Tool Testing vs Typical Jobsite Use
For many men who love tools and work in construction—they love to help out, it’s the hands-on testing that really motivates them. We beat the snot out of these tools and get away with it. In fact, we encourage them to use the tools hard. Or, at the very least, we set up our testing to max out torque and cutting/sawing/screwing ability. We don’t encourage them to drop cordless power tools off the roof or see how well they work in the pool—but that leaves a lot of wiggle room!
Men (and women) simply don’t get to do this in a concentrated way on the jobsite. In fact, many of my contractor friends love when they can finally bring out a tool they haven’t used in months—simply because they enjoy using it.
Men Love a Challenge!
So this fascination with tools is very similar to the reason most men would take almost any ridiculous “man challenge” for the promise of a gold sticker on their forehead and “buddy cred”.
“Hey, I bet you can’t crush that can with your head!” Sound familiar?
Why do we as men like to play with power tools? Because we’re men (well, some of us). And, yes, we know there are women who love tools as well.
