Question about Men and Socks ...

My wonderful DH and I have been married 5.5 years. He is currently deployed to Iraq, so I decided to take inventory and straighten out his dresser drawers, plus the drawers in the closet. (With his blessing and permission, mind you.)

He has socks in 4 different drawers. He has over 80 pairs of socks. Most of his socks are black (work) or white (non-work), with a very few pair of other colors.

Ummm.... is this normal? Socks in 4 different drawers? Over 80 pairs? Or am I just married to a guy who loves his socks?

married to a man that REALLY loves socks. for some reason most men I know love socks and getting a new pack is like heaven. I'd buy him all new socks--what a great gift that would be.

I've known several men who just never throw out the old socks, they just buy new ones. If you need the drawer space, go through and throw out all the holey ones and all of the stretched out ones.

Wow - that's a lot of socks!!  I'd thin them out a bit.  I mean seven pairs each of the black and white, and a couple of the other colors should be enough, you'd think. 

He probably doesn't even realize he has that many, cause if he's like my husband, he NEVER gets rid of anything.  I finally put my foot down 2 weeks ago and made him git rid of t-shirts from the 80's and a suit he's had since he was 17 (he's 39 now!)

Does your husband mine socks from all four drawers?

My husband doesn't have such a cache, but  what he does do that drives me batty is...

If he finds a hole in one of his socks he tosses just the one with the hole away, the other he tosses in the dirty clothes.

So I keep wondering where the heck I lost one of his socks. Putting the lone one in its own little corner of the drawer, only to think I found it when my husband repeats the whole, hole in the sock scenario.

But that only works with matching style socks (not all of them are) and it well drives me crazy.

lol you should see MY sock drawer haha......

I would def go through and find ones w holes or ones that have stretched a bit...I know when I buy new socks, I fail to throw the old ones out UNTIL I wear one and there is a hole or something, then I'll throw it....but I have a whole drawer dedicated just to socks, and I probably have 100+ haha.

he and i must have some subconsious fear of being w/o socks! haha

Molly - was he a bachelor for a long time? 

Of all the laundry in the universe - I hate doing socks.  So I own about 40 pairs - that way I don't have to do them more than once a month.

Maybe it's a holdover?

hahaha bagga....that is what I do! lol

but i never sort out 'pairs' of socks, I just throw them in a pile, then in a drawer, so I don't notice if the dryer 'eat's one or if I throw one away.

Original Post by glinda:

Molly - was he a bachelor for a long time? 

Of all the laundry in the universe - I hate doing socks.  So I own about 40 pairs - that way I don't have to do them more than once a month.

Maybe it's a holdover?

 Hmmm.... he was 37 when we got married. You may be onto something!

I have to agree with most of the posters...men have a very, very strange relationship with socks. My fiance doesn't have THAT many pairs, but he has twice as many as I do. And a lot of them are worn and tattered. And he really, REALLY loves to get new socks, lol.

My fiance has a different issue with socks. He refuses to wear anything but white, no matter what I do. I tell him that white sports socks look hideous with black shoes and dress pants - he does not care. He's actually had to borrow socks to wear to a wedding once because he does not have his own colored ones and I refused to let him out the door in white.

So I conclude...men just have odd relationships with socks.

It must be a guy thing, my Partner changes his socks about three times a day, and has about 100 pairs. He has work socks, ankle socks, baseball socks, hockey socks... and he always buys new socks when he goes out shopping.

I have lots of socks!  I don't wear most of them anymore (tevas are great), but I have gym socks and ankle socks and hiking socks and socks for boots and trouser socks...then socks for wearing like slippers.  Don't even get me started on hosiery!

I have a sock drawer and just toss them in and fish out two that mostly match.  Most of them are white, I have a few pairs of black and the trouser socks are mostly black or navy.  They get tossed when I go to wear them and there's a hole or a stain.  I buy the new ones at costco every other year so there's always a few to match.

BTW, I am a woman.

Wow! That is a lot of socks. I mean, I think most men are at least a little attached to their socks, but that's a bit overboard. Haha.

My father also really digs socks. I remember we used to buy him these weird scented black socks for Christmas. They smelled like fresh-cut grass and other such things. I thought it was hilarious. My father loved it.

My husband has a thing for plain white t-shirts. He always buys the exact same brand, and wears them for everything - under his polos and other t-shirts, to bed, to run in...the worn out ones are for running in and he has a system to determine how much the neck has stretched out to make it a running/sleeping shirt. He probably has about 30 of them.

Haha my boyfriend and I do the same thing... but backwards. He doesn't have very many pairs, and he does a lot of laundry. I don't like doing laundry too often, and I have tons and tons of socks. When I used to just sleep over and his house a few times a week I had more socks at his house than he did! Haha.

My S.O. does that.  He just keeps buying new socks if the old ones are pilled or worn, but never throws out anything.  Luckily we don't have to argue about it because we have never lived in the same house during the 20+ years we've spent together.

He also has a linen closet full of neatly folded torn sheets, underneath his good ones.  And I'm not going to mention the 75 or so (I'm not kidding) souvenir tee shirts from all over.

My boyfriend doesn't even keep his socks in drawers.  They're on shelves.  He claims that his socks are too big and he can't fit any reasonable amount into a drawer (his feet are size 14).  He actually doesn't use drawers at all..he has a huge closet that is overflowing with clothes, plus two tall shelves covered in clothes.  Mostly t-shirts he never wears.  We're moving in together in a couple of weeks.  We'll have a fairly large closet, but if he keeps all his stuff there would be zero room for mine.  But we've discussed it.  He knows he only gets one side of the (walk in) closet.  We'll see what happens, lol. 

He's basically a pack rat.  And from reading the above posts..I'm starting to think a lot of men are?  Or just too lazy to purge the garbage out of their closets? 

Molly, you have enough socks to make him a quilt.  Don't worry about the holy ones, Patch them with his old shirts.  Piece them all together and he will have a warm blanket for all of chilly nights as well as a converstion piece.

Mine has probably 30-40 pairs but I just wear his instead of buying my own, most of the time, so we have a shared (large) sock drawer. So yeah, 80 pairs is a little unusual; most guys I know don't own enough socks, not too many of them. We only have so many because before we lived together, my sweetie would routinely buy new socks simply in order to delay doing laundry. (He also has far too many pairs of boxer-briefs).

p.s. Molly, I hope your hubby gets home safe and soon.