Men and Shopping
I like shopping, that's a quite a rare thing for a straight man. I don’t mind walking around the shopping mall with nothing particular in mind, just looking around and checking out stuff to see if there’s anything I like or worth buying. But I really have a problem with shopping with girls, because it is such a long and painful process for a girl to choose a shirt, try different sizes, different colours, compare prices, try again, compare discounted price, try again, and finally pay.
Most men, including myself, have a very short shopping time span. We see, we try, and we buy. That’s all there is to it. But girls are different; they walk into a shop, choose 4 items of clothing (or whatever the maximum number is), go into the fitting room, and put it on one by one, walk out from the fitting room and ask their boy friend/female friend the same questions over and over again. “Do you like it?” “Does it match my shoe?” “Do you think it’s too low?” and the ultimate must-ask-question, “Do I look fat in this?” After the Q&A section, they will check the price, and put back those which are too expensive. If you check the price tag before going into the fitting room, wouldn’t it save lots of OUR time? The answer I got from girls was “Even if I can’t afford it doesn’t mean I can’t try it”, that is something I can never understand, just like I can’t understand how women are able to put hot boiling wax on their legs, but are still scared of spiders.
However, being a person with lots of patience, and lots of training from dating shopping freaks, I kind of got used to waiting, and pretending to be interested in what the girls are trying on in the fitting rooms. I learnt that there are a few taboo words that you can’t say while commenting on the stuff that she’s wearing. “Fat” is a big no no, others like “I thought you have something similar to this” or “I don’t think this colour suits you” are equally bad. Seriously guys, if you wanna see her taking off those clothes in front of you then you better be extra careful on the words you use. “Not bad”, “Nice” or “I like that one better” will make your life much easier.
I noticed that half of the ladies’ designers boutiques don’t even have a place for men. I mean if you go to those teen brands like Topshop or Mambo, at least they provide entertainment for the guys like Playstation2 or foosball, some even provide big screen plasma T.Vs with music videos to keep the guys occupied. But if you walk into higher price ranged shops like Salvatore Ferragamo or Burberry, the only place for men is the empty corner of the shop (near the store room), or in front of the counter if you are paying the bill. I went shopping with Steph yesterday at Melbourne Bourke Street’s Myer, and it was such a bad shopping place for men. They have the entire guy’s stuff in one building and the girls stuff across the road at the other building. So we browsed through the men’s section within 40 minutes (including the time for Steph to buy some sports wear at the sports section), and then went into the female department. While Steph was enjoying her time looking around, I sat in a corner where all the other husbands/boyfriends were waiting (in the shoe section – where women sit to try on shoes). It was like a gathering place for all the male customers and you can see that everyone’s facial expression is like “let’s get the fuck out from here”. Hire some strippers and put some poles there for goodness sake. Lucky for me Steph was pretty quick.
My personal finest shopping experience with girls was at Oroton’s boutique last year. While EJ was looking around and trying out stuff, I was sitting on their comfy couch, enjoying their treats of champagne and snacks, and the sales girl brought me men’s magazines and constantly asked me if I needed anything. Well, the reason for them to treat me as a VIP was because EJ bought a hand bag with a 4 digit price tag and they thought I paid for it (as if). I guess only rich people are able to enjoy comfortable shopping.