Maybe it is true sometimes for some people. I notice, as somebody who sells things to people, that selling an item and taking cash is often like a movie from the 70s: 2 people are all hot and bothered to jump on each other, but after the transaction is complete, they just want to move on quickly. (well, in the movie, they had a smoke and he said "I'll call ya" as she wondered wtf she saw in this gorilla)
I know that if its a super cool item, like the POLAR BEAR TEE I recently ordered, I can't wait to get it on and wear it. Then I launder it and wear it again! 3-4 times in one week! Or, for example, I buy gnocci at the store and we have them right away for dinner. But I notice many of my customers may be chatty about their purchase right up to passing over the money, and then they are like WHOOSH, gone....
Then there is somebody I know, maybe a shopaholic, who admits to never being able to leave any store, ever, without buying something. She claims that she does not want the owner to feel bad that she didn't buy something. But maybe you end up with a household full of junk that way? Or, back to our movie example: a lot of gorillas come home, and she catches a, um, disease.
Then there is the men and women question. As a perhaps typical macho man, I go to the store and grab what I need, what I planned to buy, like gnocci or a polar bear tee, and pay and depart. It all just takes seconds. And I never talk to salespeople (aside from being shy) unless I have an important question or I know I am getting something, I don't want to get their hopes up. As a guy who has sold a lot of items at shows, I am always amazed at the number of yahoos who yack at you, tell you their life story, then wander off, or the teases, the ones who seem interested in buying something, but then wander off to spend their money on a silk screened tee with a howling wolf instead of my pots. Its like that movie, the bar scene: he's just not that into you.
So, browsing, looking for deals, seeing what is there to see, spending what seems like forever in the store? Not for me. I took the wife out shopping last week, and tried to convince her I really meant it: take all the time you need! She is used to me pushing her along, but I reassured her that the 5 books and magazines I planned to read in the car would keep me amused. This is the mature stage of that movie: when the 2 stars settle down and get married and...shop together for life.
BUT the wife might prefer shopping with her friend !!!! who is a good match for her shopping temperament. Plus drives a Mercedes. !!!! also likes to linger and look at all kinds of junk, will take unexpected detours, and will even do garage sale circuits, like on Memorial Day when garage sales are everywhere. The wife and !!!! are well suited for shopping together.....which takes alot of pressure off of me.
Then there is the other type of shopping companion. The type who drags you along, needing a mirror, somebody to look at THEM. "Does this make my ass look big? How does this purple look on me??? Does this orange top make me look HOT????"
I will admit to being, as friends have said of me, "the most impatient person on Earth", which is why I will go out of my way to give the wife shopping time, as a polite gift, just like she listens to my boring stories.
What sort of shopper are you? What do you like about shopping? Is a sport for you or just a necessity?
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29 comments:
Oh my goodness, I hate shopping. Hate it hate it hate it. Apparently I flunked "Girls 101" because I have no interest in clothes or makeup or hairdos or even :::gasp::: shopping. I know what I'm going for, get what I need, and leave. Sometimes I look around and can sense it's not a good day for shopping, so I skip right to the end... and just leave.
I'm with Deborah, not a fan of shooping. Although I don't mind shoe shopping, as shoes tend not to make one's @$$ look fat. ;-)
I'm the guy shopper that you mentioned above. Buy the item and get out.
I can also relate to the person that asks you a lot of questions, but doesn't purchase the item. I'm at a point that I'm trying to get rid of things in my house. I want simplicity. I see many items that I'm curious about, and will ask questions. At the same time I very seldom purchase items. I'm an extrovert, so I just enjoy the conversation.
Steve
YOU- just made me laugh- out loud!
These things are sooooooooooo true and could not have been said better.
5 books and a magazine.......
Being a total foodie, I love to shop in darkly lit neighborhood bodegas in the city that have wierd crazy food like fermented black beans, pickeled turnips, funny looking veggies I've never seen before, sacks of crazy named rice, fresh flatbreads and oddly colored candy. I used to buy up bags of stuff w/o knowing how to use it, then get on the internet and find out how to use them.
years ago i used to enjoy shopping... now i don't go unless there is something i need. the less time you spend in stores the longer your money stays in your wallet.
the dangerous place for jeff and i to go together is art supply stores... we want to buy EVERYTHING there!
I am with kimmy here--golly I love grocery shopping! because I love eating! All those interesting items. And I have to admit that, as a shy person, internet shopping is EXCELLENT :) Thanks for your comments!
And for the record? as you know, when you saw me post pics of it last week, my new polar bear tee? IT IS ORANGE AND IT MAKES ME LOOK HOT :)
I have never liked to shop. My daughters were disappointed in me of course and all my girlfriends would try to pull me to a mall but I hated it and whined so much they finally found others to take shopping. I shop online now for whatever I need except most groceries. Click, click, shopping is done. My kind of shopping.
I hate shopping and I hate it even more if people expect me to talk to them or linger about while I'm looking around. I'll just leave the store. I'm not good at or comfortable with small talk. I just never learned that skill. This is also why I go so long between haircuts. I'd like to go somewhere where the hairstylist just didn't expect me to say anything. And haircuts take soooo long. You're trapped there in a seat and it's all so uncomfortable.
YES! Kasey- were we separated at birth? I'm never so relieved as when I have someone cutting my hair who's all business and no chit-chat. I want them to focus!
As far as shopping, my parents were total & complete opposites. We lived 45miles from the nearest mall in any direction, so mall trips were a huge undertaking. I remember once my dad walked right into the first store we came across, pointed at the first pair of shoes he saw, bought them and sat in the car the rest of the time. My mother, however, will linger, will go back to the same area five or six times, meander... I like to browse, but shopping with her means devoting your entire day and energy to one place & I can't do it. She also liked to tell us at shoe stores that she had to see us try on the shoe before she'd buy it. But then she'd leave the store to look around somewhere else. And you're stuck with this shoe on your foot and you can't take it off until she returns and you can't go after her and leave the store with unpaid merchandise... it was so frustrating. I like to look around, but I also like to make progress and get to see a .
I hate shopping for the sake of shopping, but if I need something like shoes (OK a weakness) I will take ages at it and prefer to do it alone. Food is fun because Proge (son) and I enjoy cooking. Neither of us is allowed into any sort of art store due to a complete lowering of defenses on both our parts.
BTW, I have been enjoying your blog for a while, but I think this is my first post. I am going to try those apple cookies this week end with a sub of cranberries and possibly 5 spice.
And hey, cool pots!
I'm a speed shopper. I have the unique ability to walk into a store, do a quick scan, and find what I need right away. Then I pay and get the hell out. Something about sauntering around various stores admiring crap and debating a purchase doesn't particularly appeal to me.
I am realizing, basically, that I never like going to sit down restaurants with wait staff. Same idea, for me: I don't want to talk with a waitress! I don't want to feckin' WAIT for a waitress! Drives me nuts. I realize that I always go to counter places--step up to the deli or taqueria, tell them to make me a tofu-mole burrito, pay up, toss the change in the can, 3 minutes later they call my name and I get down to the important bidness: EATING! With a minimum of human interation, except for with my delightful companion....
INTERACTION I mean to say....
I loathe shopping with every fiber of my being, even for stuff I like. After I came out to my parents, my mother commented on what a disappointment it was that she had a gay son who hated shopping and who had no advice to give on hairstyles. Ah well.
I um...well umm....I have just got home from visiting FIVE stores. I knew what I wanted, but could not find it in the first couple of stops. I love to shop alone...I don't need a mirror at all. :)
I DO loathe grocery shopping though....let me out at the garden nursery, home depot, home decor store and I will be in heaven!!!
Be careful, you will wear out your polar tee quickly. :)
I do not like shopping for groceries. My husband is a great food shopper...in and out ASAP, and with everything on the list! I detest the fact that I get home sometimes and have forgotten something...and we live six miles from town and who the heck wants to drive right back for butter or milk or whatever...I do like browsing little shops that are not full of plastic crap and I don't like malls either. My daughter could shop til the cows come home...
I'm an easy shopper, because I genuinely hate it, so it's as rare an occurence I can make it....
Unless I'm in a tool store.... I'm difficult to move from places like that...
Or a bookstore, especially a dusty old second hand one with boxes of treasure...
And I like junk stores, or, as they call them in Texas, "antique stores".
Luckily, the Red Dirt Girl is extremely compatible with me on the subject of shopping.
We buy poetry books together.
She'll even pretend to be interested in self adjusting vise-grip wrenches.
I've tried to test her patience, but hey, she's close to perfect.
I HATE, HATE, HATE, shopping. I love browsing around galleries, etc...but for some reason when I purchase these items I don't consider it shopping, I considers it treasure hunting....hahha
Oh don't even mention garage sales, or flea markets, I could write a huge book about that, and I could tell you a true story of the one my Mom had...OMG! I wanted to run away screaming from those people...UGH!
Don't forget that I suffer Post Traumatic Stress for the time I was in a store with my Mom when I was little, and a guy comes in shooting the owner, and everything in sight.
I am the Museum, book store, type of shopper, clothes, ugh, I still wear some of my tops from High School...hahahha and shoes, and coats. hahahhaa I have had people stop and say, "OMG WHERE DID YOU GET THAT COAT"! I reply, in 1967 my Mom bought it for me...hahahha true!
I hate shopping in a retail store. I feel pressure, and I don't like standing around. I dislike having to go to more than one store.
HOWEVER, I have no problem with shopping online (if I have the time to do it) and will put a ton of things in my cart... and then maybe not purchase anything. Weird, I know. (It's like catalog shopping without mailing in the form.)
And I do enjoy grocery shopping and will wander up and down ALL the aisles. Because, hello -- FOOD.
then there is the flippin' MUZAK, you know?
I am like you--targeted. I truly hate browsing. It's not very womanly of me.
It all depends upon the mission. If I'm with my beloved, then browsing in old bookstores (or ones going out of business) and 'antique' stores is quite fun. I like the hardware store because it is a foreign land to me and I enjoy watching Soubry get all boyishly excited over a vise wrench ??! But shopping for me? I'm an in and out person. I know what I want and I go buy it. I prefer online shopping except for the hassles of returning items that don't fit. However, as I work in retail as a sales associate, you must know that we are MANDATED to greet you within the first 30 seconds you are in the store PLUS offer to help you. Then we have this entire acronym: GUEST that we're supposed to use with each customer which includes chatting with them. I'm not much of a chatterer on most days ....and rarely get all the factoids out to the customer like I'm supposed to ...!
xxx
golly, all these shopping haters, yet the economy has not collapsed :)
I can be enthusiastic about shopping if it's about fun stuff AND I'm in the right mood. Grocery shopping can get me down when it's all about comparing prices and repeatedly replenishing the same dozen items that everyone wants/demands.
I'm not a good shopper, I tend to burn out quickly with sensory overload. I am OK when I'm focused on what I want, but when I browse, I lose focus.
I should say, that this feeling adjusts for scale. I'm much better off shopping in a small boutique than in a big superstore, and I hate malls. After 15 minutes in a giant superstore, everything just looks like arbitrary cheap crap to me - even when I'm actually searching for something specific.
I've actually walked out empty-handed even when on a true mission (buying a winter coat, for instance) because too much choice burns me out.
I actually hate shopping,hate it, particularly in a crowded store, but when I shop I have to go alone. The few times a year I shop, I linger and my heat seeking missile shopper of a husband (in, out, driving home) isn't allowed to come with me
I hate shopping, too. I keep a list in my bookbag, and duck into the grocery on my way home from work. In, out! If I can't find what I want in 5 minutes, I'm normally outta there! I'll pay more at a small shop just to get in and out fast.
We have a lot of street vendors here in Korea, and I buy fruits and socks from them quite often, when I happen to be walking by, but I don't go looking for them. They are usually cheaper than the stores, too, probably cuz they don't have as much "overhead" as a bricks-and-mortar store.
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