Recently a girl I know told me that she had purchased some underwear for herself as a present for her boyfriend. Baffled, I questioned her as to how clothing that she was going to wear on her own body would in any way be a viable gift for her other half. “Well, it’s nice underwear”, she responded.

Now it’d be unreasonable for me to assess her boyfriend’s reaction come the morning of his birthday, having his girlfriend tell him that she has a “special surprise” for him only for her to turn up to his house and unveil a pair of rouge bra ‘n’ panties, but if that were me I’d be like “BITCH, WHERE’S MY PLAYSTATION 3?!” before grabbing those bank-busting earrings I’d recently bought her and sprinting to the pawn shop.

I can see how women got the impression that men care about their choice of underwear; the evidence is all across the our magazine covers. But honestly, the only reason Kelly Brook bothers wearing them in photo-shoots is so we can thumb through Maxim without our missus’ asking why we’re “looking at porn”.

That isn’t to say underwear cannot help accentuate a woman’s best assets. Booty shorts tuck miraculously well underneath the curves of the ass. In fact, it was upon witnessing a bunch of Spanish teens frolicking around in them poolside whilst holidaying at the tender age of 12 that I was first propelled into puberty. I remember staring wide-eyed and mouth agape at the sight of the slight (but noticeable) jiggle that rippled across their bronzed cheeks following each movement they made, and looking down at myself and thinking “I don’t know what’s happening down there, but I think I need to discreetly make my way into the bathroom and punch it until it goes away”. Fortunately I soon found out that there was another way of beating it that was decidedly more enjoyable.

Booty shorts are the second best thing a girl can wear on her body. But, what’s the first? Nothing at all, of course, and therein lies the problem; a girl can cover up her modesty as sexily as she likes, but nothing she may find will be as sexy as her modesty. That doesn’t stop her underwear from being a visual representation of her character, though. A guy can learn a lot from a woman’s mindset just from what she’s wearing underneath her clothes. For instance, if you take a girl home from the club and she’s wearing bra ‘n’ panties with grossly mismatched colors, it can mean one of three things:

1: It’s “that time of the month”

2: She hasn’t had sex in so long that she assumed she automatically wouldn’t be having any tonight

Or 3: She’s color-blind

On the flip side of the coin, if you get into bed with a girl whom you’ve been dating for a while and she’s mismatched, this can mean one of only two things:

1: She’s gotten too comfortable

Or 2: She’s gotten lazy

I suggested this same theory to my girlfriend recently after noticing that she had begun resorting to a black bra/neon-pink knickers tandem. Commendably she fired back with a complaint of her own, calling me out on my hypocrisy due to the fact that my own underwear appears to be have been sewn together by a quadriplegic 8 year-old, and we both agreed that we would no longer mention our poor taste in undergarments for the sake of our relationship.

So does it matter, then? Do men care about what women wear under their clothes? In a word: No. If we’ve managed to get you to that stage of undress, then it’s likely we aren’t going to ruminate too long on your expensive panties. Now go ahead and buy us that PS3.