Do Judge A Man By His iPod
Checking what's on a guy's ipod and MP3 player can give you a unique insight into his personality.
Don't judge a book by its cover, but do judge a man by his iPod.
If you go through his CD collection, he can always laugh of any embarrassing purchases or guilty pleasures as bad gifts, but the songs on his iPod are there because he chose them and give you a unique insight into his personality – the good and the bad.
First off, if you find exactly the sort of songs you like then at least you have something in common. However, if you happen to like Kylie, Scissor Sisters and George Michael then perhaps his iPod is telling you something he might not want to come out and admit, but no doubt his mother knew since he was a lad.
Judging by the music, there are a few basic types of men.
If you switch on and find a load of metal, you could well be in for trouble, unless of course he looks like a metaller and you want that sort of thing, for some unknown reason.
A normal guy with metal on his MP3 tells of deep-seated immaturity. Most boys grow out of the throes of Iron Maiden et al in their early teens. If he is still head banging on the tube to Def Leppard (and not doing it ironically) while wearing a suit he's probably never grown up and probably never will do so.
At the other end of the spectrum is the classical guy. Here there are two divisions, the genuine and the poser. If he is genuinely into classical and loves his Mozart, good luck. However, be careful that any sign of a noisy pub or a gig and he could be running for the hills. The same is true if you find too much jazz.
If he is the poser then he just has a few arias downloaded to appear cultured, when really he is not. The sad thing is that he is not really trying to impress other people, but is kidding himself. My advice: steer clear! If he lies to himself about liking classical, then what will he lie to you about?
If you find anything by Mariah Carey just leave the restaurant or pub without explanation and never see him again. There is just no excuse for that.
Switching on his iPod and finding nothing you've ever heard of before, and I mean nothing, can be a turn-off but it needn't be. You just have to ask him about one of the bands.
This happened to me once. I like music, but this guy had nothing on his MP3 player that I knew about. So I asked him about one band. This is where a potentially good date fell apart. Just because I didn't know about that late '70s French punk outfit I was judged to be ignorant. Suddenly I was put on test with the contents of my iPod being put up for discussion and mockery – just because I couldn't name the drummer in each band and the release dates of their first three singles I became sub-human.
It is a strange disease, but I've come to the conclusion that men are particularly susceptible to being muso-bores, and no-one likes a bore.
There are plenty of others to be careful of from the hip hop freak from the home counties (no!no!no!) to the indie boy who hasn't realised that Britpop died a decade ago.
And my advice on what to have on your iPod to impress him? Either have three MP3 players and pick the one to match the date or drag out your cassette walkman and listen to songs recorded off the radio like you did in school.
