Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Shop 'Til You Drop!

I find that shopping with women completely depends upon your perspective, and on your specific relationship with the woman concerned.
For instance, shopping with your partner can be more stressful than shopping with a friend who happens to be a lady. Also, the type of shopping can vary the mood accordingly.

Food and grocery shopping is far worse than clothes shopping in my opinion.
I can do my food shopping in any supermarket with no problems whatsoever. I tend to shop in the supermarket which is nearest to where I live, irrespective of price as I think most items even themselves out in the end. In Slough & Bristol it was Tesco, in Bath & Bognor it was Morrisons, in Cheltenham & Chichester it was Waitrose ~ I can adapt to their respective layouts pretty quickly ~ it must be all my previous years working in retail I guess! Lol.
But grocery shopping with one ex-partner in particular was a complete nightmare!
Firstly, it was done on a weekly basis which required the inevitable and lengthy list.
Then I proceeded to push a trolley behind my other-half as she weighs up her options between brand, price, and value on every single item. Two hours later we may have reached the checkout if I was lucky!
And I'm not being a typical man I assure you - I would've quite happily taken the list on my own and completed all the items in a very timely fashion...although no doubt I would've been queried on one or two choices when I got home! Ha ha.

Now, clothes shopping is another matter entirely.
If your partner is trying on clothes and asking for your honest opinion, then you feel like the fella in the latest Fosters Ad - do you tell the truth? Whereas, if you're shopping with a female friend you can be a bit more subjective, and they also seem to welcome your honest view as friends don't tend to hold back.
If your partner asks you, "does my bum look big in this?"; it's not always wise to be honest.
But if a friend asks you the same question...well, what do you reckon, readers?

I must say that I am extremely patient when shopping with women, and I actually quite enjoy it especially if I'm only tagging along and not expected to contribute too much.
To highlight my patience I can recall one time visiting 17 stores along Oxford Street, London with my then girlfriend looking for a pair of jeans, which invariably required three pairs per shop to be tried on in the changing rooms. Over 50 sampled pairs of jeans later and guess what...that's right, we went back to the very first shop to purchase the favoured pair!

Compare this to a lovely day recently spent shopping in Southampton with a good friend, although it was mainly for my benefit.
I knew exactly what I wanted and more-or-less got everything straight away. I then had no problem walking around the ladies boutiques with my friend as she browsed through all the latest trends and fashions.
This was fuelled on a Costa breakfast, and then washed down afterwards with a beer in the sun though it has to be said!

Finally, I must confess to having trouble with identifying clothing for women which I can guarantee that they'd like, as women can be very fussy and particular with their personal preferences...although this is a generalisation as I know of one noticable exception.
There was a lovely lady in my life with a taste in clothes and shoes which I could just pick out straight away.
I could venture into Per Una section in Marks & Spencer and I'd have no problem at all in finding the right item, size and colour for her at any time, in any season...if only all you ladies had similar tastes! Lol.

Solo Steve

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