Long story short, before the lockdown friend invited me over to help with yardwork with the promise he’d return the favor soon after. My wife for whatever reason took my “emergency hat” I keep in my vehicle out of it (for sudden rain or emergency bad hair days) so when I got to his house I asked him if I could borrow a hat once I found out my hat was gone as he was already wearing his yard work baseball hat.
He immediately accused me of being irresponsible and claimed that he only owned a single hat, and why would you own more than a single hat? He made it seem like everyone on Earth only owns a single hat and I was somehow an idiot for thinking that people own more than a single hat.
Half dozen or so. Don’t think i’d let a friend borrow one though. And I wouldn’t want to borrow one of his either. Just one of those semi-hygenic Items you don’t really share.
I don’t think it has anything to do with how many hats one owns, but on what your expectations should be when helping out a friend. If you suddenly found out you were minus a hat after you got there, it’s perfectly fine to ask if there’s a spare around, but it’s not fine to then make a fuss when you find out that there isn’t one. You should be expected to provide for yourself even when you’re helping out a friend in a situation where a hat is desirable. In other words, don’t try to turn your problem into his problem.
I can’t, of course, be certain, but my suspicion is that your friend only made those statements because he became defensive after you first made a fuss.
I own several sun hats, one for each time I went on vacation and forgot to take one with me and had to buy another one. I only need one; I only wear it at the beach.
I’ve given most of mine away because they were baseball hats - freebies given to volunteers at race events. I need more coverage due to basal cell cancers but I have about 5 or 6 that I use all summer.
I’m mostly bald and work out in the sun all day, so I buy a bunch of Tractor Supply-branded hats every spring ($5 a piece!). I’ve also got a fisherman/bucket hat that I use on really hot sunny days to keep the sun off. Finally I’ve got my “good” hat that I wear out when I’m not working (currently a Detroit Tigers home hat). So I’d say at any given time I have between 6 and 15 hats.
I’m also a bit of a head-sweater, so no one would want to put their heads anywhere near one of the work ones. They typically only last for about three weeks before I’ve sweated them to death.
Whoa, you’re getting emotionally invested in what accessories your friend buys? And how many he has? Would you get upset if he only owned one good pair of shoes? (oh, wait, that’s me… but if you came over and asked to borrow a pair of shoes, I’d only have a ratty pair of disgusting work boots for you)
I’d tell you how many (actually, how* few)* hats I have… but not if you’re going to judge me for it…
I have 3 ballcaps I could find immediately, and don’t really have a preference on, maybe depending on my jacket or whatever. I stopped wearing sports team hats because people assume I want to have a conversation about it. I don’t. So they are all unmarked. I have a trapper hat for cold weather, and a cabbie hat, somewhere. I have a full head of hair but I wear a hat when going outside 99% of the time.
Hats (for men) stopped being a social norm decades ago, and a lot of my male friends seem to never wear them (or only wear one when it’s extremely cold out). One of my best friends does, in fact, own exactly one hat (though it’s a very nice brimmed leather hat), and he rarely wears it.
So, I don’t think I’d be at all surprised to learn that a guy owns only one hat (or doesn’t own a hat at all).
For myself, I do own a lot of them – I have a dozen or so baseball caps, plus an Indiana Jones fedora, and a trilby. My hair is thin on top, and after a sunburn or two when it started thinning in my late 20s, I started making sure to have a cap or hat on when I’m out in the sun for any length of time.
I know where a folding straw hat is, and there is probably still a sunbrella somewhere, but for all practical purposes of actually wearing one, I don’t have a hat and haven’t had one for probabaly close to 30 years.
I read the OP as that the friend’s only worldly possession was a hat.
Thank God I was mistaken.
But back to the subject at hand, I do have a couple of hats, but would rather share my knickers than share a hat if someone came up short- changed. YMMV, of course.
Not wanting to lend a hat to you isn’t weird. People sweat all over hats and their hair is greasy. Maybe your friend was thinking: “get your own hat! Ew!”
