Why a man is sometimes a brown paper bag

Be that as it may, these were the words calmly uttered by one of my girlfriends on just such an occasion. After enjoying the stunned silence that ensued, she proceeded to explain that this was a phrase coined by her very wise grandmother. Apparently the really good men are like brown paper bags. At first they are left unnoticed, obscured by all the bright and shiny plastic bags that seem as if they would do the job.

However, as the handles on our “plastic bag man” begin to snap, we start to wonder if in fact looks might have been deceiving, and whether there might be a superior alternative out there. That is when we notice the “brown paper bag”, perhaps not at first the most eye catching of bags, but it is functional. You get what you expect with a paper bag, and it generally has no handles that will eventually snap. It is also far better for the planet.

Now I’m rather a fan of metaphors, and this one seemed to me to ring true. I couldn’t help but remember a couple of occasions on which, had I not been blinded by whatever blonde-haired blue-eyed plastic bag paraded around me, I might not have missed the brown paper bag behind them. This brown paper bag would subsequently not have moved on, more often than not to then be snatched up by someone slightly more observant than myself. Someone like my friend for example.

As I continued to think about it, I began to draw similar parallels with other parts of my life as well. Clothes shopping for example. There are copious amounts of clothes in my wardrobe that I never wear, but that, in the shop, caught my eye as a result of being bright or snazzy. Consequently there are never any occasions for something so bright and snazzy, and I end up resorting to the same tired number that I know won’t let me down.

It’s the same with shoes. The really gorgeous high ones absolutely cane my feet, and the tatty pair of heels that I bought from the charity shop for £2.50 turned out to be an awesome find. Why do we insist on acting like magpies, endlessly searching for the brightest and shiniest object out there?

I have recently discovered the Bourne Trilogy, and those of you familiar with this fantastic piece of cinema will empathise with the fact that, approximately five minutes into the first film, I was in love with Jason Bourne (Matt Damon). He isn’t much of a talker, rather more what you might describe as the strong silent type. Needless to say he has a chiselled jaw, captivating eyes and the body of a Grecian God. Yet, as the film progressed, I began to realise that being the girlfriend of such an amazing piece of ass was not necessarily all that.

As he is on the run, his women have to keep dying their hair and chopping it all off. They have to keep moving house, waking up in the middle of the night to soothe his nightmares, and eventually either get shot or have to run away and make a life for themselves alone somewhere. Jason Bourne is definitely not a brown paper bag. Although he loved Marie very deeply, this didn’t really help her much in the end. She would have been better off ignoring his muscles, and going off with some bookish student from her course.

I know that these observations are nothing ground-breaking. People have been telling us to stop being so superficial for years. But maybe it’s time we listened. I appreciate that not all good looking men are the Jason Bourne equivalent, but my example is merely to highlight the fact that you can never know the full story when you first meet someone. So perhaps you should take a chance on that certain someone who may have asked you out; the person that sits next to you in seminars but seems a bit quiet. You never know, they may turn out to be exactly what you didn’t know you were looking for.

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