Never. Ever. Really. You can’t make me shop with my husband.” This is what a female friend said to me after I had asked her if she enjoys shopping with her husband. “It’s like pulling teeth,” she added. I’d rather be shoeless for the rest of my life than endure shopping with him. The mall is his kryptonite; he thinks that if he stays there longer than several minutes he will disintegrate and be recycled into toilet paper. All he does is pester me via successive, back-to-back text messages saying, ‘Are you done yet? Are you done yet?’”
Men and women are different; don’t we all know that. Sometimes—when restructuring loans, tossing a salad, or changing the oil in the car — this isn’t a big deal. Other times — when shooting Iraqis, sprinting 100 meters, or making babies — it kind of matters. But there is one activity where the chasm which separates the genders makes the Grand Canyon look like something a little epoxy could fix: going shopping.
To most men the thought of shopping with their significant others causes severe breathing difficulties because they consider malls to be vicious, monstrous beasts that have rows of identical shoe stores lining their bellies. These very monsters gobble them up for sustenance so most stay away.
The average man only has enough patience to browse electronic goods, car parts, or hardware stores — all in under an hour. He can blow his entire month’s salary on something noisy and be back home playing with it before the missus is done fondling a pair of culottes she wouldn’t be seen dead in a ditch with.
People without ovaries can’t shop; they simply are not wired to. They do not have the patience to spend hours on end hunting for the perfect shade of taupe shoes to go with a wedding outfit (if they even know that such a color exists to begin with), they do not have the resourcefulness and the social network necessary to zero in on the best bargains, and after a day’s search and finally finding it, they do not have the cunning to outsmart the lady holding the very last pair in your size.
Women, on the other hand, are born to shop. To us, shopping is an Olympic sport and we train our whole lives for it. So that when you put a couple in a mall for a shopping expedition, you have the perfect recipe for evisceration or beheading.
“I have better things to do with my time than to babysit my boyfriend while shopping for something as simple as a pair of jeans. He doesn’t even know what a rivet is; he thinks it’s some kind of skin disease. He can’t decide, he doesn’t know what looks good on him because he’s not aware of his body type, and he whines endlessly about the prices so we’re better off with me buying it and handing it over to him. He wears everything I get for him anyway so why will I torture myself and lug him, in a full-blown temper tantrum, around the mall? I park him at home in front of the TV so I can shop in peace.” This statement is from a twenty-something friend who had just recently been engaged to said boyfriend.
I asked a forty-something, married man if he enjoyed shopping. His answer was, “The few times that I go to the mall to shop, I feel suffocated by the swarms of chattering, giggling, walking, browsing, buying women toting an arsenal of shopping bags and who all seem to be closing in on me from all directions. I feel like they’re going to swallow me up — make that all the men in the mall — and rule the world. My wife’s that way at home: talking, talking, talking, if not to me then to the maids, the children, her friends, the dog. Why will I go to the mall where there are hundreds of her walking and shopping around? So, do I enjoy shopping? NO!”
It was obvious that I had touched a nerve with that man but I persisted. “Okay,” I said to him, quite overwhelmed. “What about shopping for her? You enjoy that?” “That’s worse. She’s on the heavy side so if it’s clothes, it’s always a miss. Nothing fits. They all have to be sent for alteration. If it’s not clothes, she never likes them — different tastes. So, no, I do not enjoy shopping for her either.”
But then, once in a blue moon, if you have good karma, the heavens might open up and drop a man — the perfect shopping companion — into your life. Sometime back, when I probably had racked up the karma points, before marriage and the babies coming in succession; when I volunteered in soup kitchens once a month; religiously sifted through my closet and donated used goods to indigents’ shelters; when I deposited soda cans and glass bottles in recycling machines beside grocery stores way before it became in vogue, I knew such a man and, yes, he was straight!
I used to think he was a pleasure to shop with because he had impeccable taste not just in his personal style but in general, be it in clothing both for men and women, music, literature, art, food, shoes, watches, and all sorts of accessories — practically all consumer goods under the sun. But I realized in time that it was much more than that.
He had an eye not just for beauty — that one’s easy; most everyone has it, since there is a common artery running through the concept of aesthetics in the modern world at least. But he had an eye for the quirky, the unique, the collector’s item, the conversation piece. He had the penchant for chancing upon rare, fairly-priced merchandise that even all the money in the world may have trouble finding. I called him “The Golden Boy” precisely for this reason. I would ask him, “How do you manage to land such precious finds?” He would simply smile and say, “I will it, so it comes to me.” He had infinite patience, finding as much pleasure in the search — walking around, browsing, allowing for diversions into other interesting destinations or detours, conversing, and mostly just reveling in the moment of having time for leisure on one’s hands. “Yes, it’s about shopping,” he would say, “but also about spending time together.”
He was always happy and I quickly realized that it wasn’t just in shopping that he was good company; it was in everything. But oh, not in seeing chick flicks; those were torture to him — can’t have it all!
He knew I love shoes — what lady doesn’t? And he knew that I had been lusting over a ridiculously priced pair of Christian Louboutins that had a cabbage rose on the front as accent. So once, while walking down San Francisco’s Union Street after an Italian lunch, he pulled me into a tiny charm-packed boutique that carried retro items from lighting fixtures to chairs, to shoes and purses. All of a sudden, he pointed to one obscure corner and then winked and smiled at me. My gaze followed his finger and there, sitting on a glass shelf was the prettiest pair of purple suede shoes I had ever seen. They were peep-toed maryjanes with a cabbage rose perched on the front and priced at half a song. Amazing!
Another time I was in the market for a bikini but didn’t have the time to shop for one so he took it upon himself to get it as a surprise. Out of nowhere, he called me from the bikini shop and said, “I have here a black pair and a pink pair, which would you prefer?” “You pick please,” I said. I had learned to trust his taste more than my own at this point. He continued, “I am holding a size six and it looks small. I think you’re an eight.” “Which part?” I asked him. “This one, the takip,” he answered. Puzzled and giggly, I asked him, “What takip?” He truly seemed surprised that I did not get what he had meant at the first try. “What else? The takip of the boobs!” “Oh, the top, you mean,” I blurted back. To make the story short, he found the cutest teeny-weenie black bikini with just a touch of gold embroidery and a thin, braided tali as he had called the strings — a perfect fit!
So what makes a man a pleasurable shopping companion? He doesn’t have to be Edward Lewis, Richard Gere’s character in the film Pretty Woman, who, as CEO of a venture capital firm, took time off from his hectic schedule to accompany his girlfriend shopping, patiently sitting through each and every outfit change and commenting with all graciousness. Although it wouldn’t hurt if he looked that good and had that much cash to blow on you.
But seriously, he has got to have a happy disposition. You don’t want Grumpy tagging along in what to women is a sacred activity, right? He has got to be patient. He has got to have good taste for how else is he to advise you on what looks good and what doesn’t. He has got to have a sense of humor — even just a tad — to weather your vacillation over this item or that. Even if he doesn’t pay for your purchase he has got to have some disposable income and not be a Scrooge about it for him to understand why everything worth having does come at a price.
What if he isn’t any of that? Then you are left with two options: a) never take him shopping with you; bring a girl friend instead, or — the better of the two if you ask me — b) shop for another man.
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Thank you for your letters. You may reach me at cecilelilles@yahoo.com or visit my blog at www.fourtyfied.blogspot.com