Shopping is a chore. Hmmm….actually the experience depends on the company you have. If you are just going out to have some fun and shop a little, it is a breeze. But it becomes a chore when buying something that is utmost essential coz of an impending need.
Another critical variable that affects your experience is your personality type. For “rationals” (INTJs) like me, shopping is a chore most of the time. I can differentiate good from bad, give me a black shirt and a white shirt, I can easily pick up which one I’d like. But talking about subtle differences between two shirts, it feels like asking to pick the better eye from both your eyes. I’d rather not shop, than select one of the two.
Its just the personality type I believe. Selecting something for myself is a big chore and ask me to buy a shirt for someone, I’d rather work on an equation to correlate Indian GDP to the cost of a pani puri in Hyderabad than shop for someone else.
Shopping for someone is a just a tall tower built on assumptions.
You need to assume that you know the person well.
Then you need to recount all your experiences with the person when he/she blurted out what kinda colors they like.
Again assume that their tastes have not changed over time.
Assume that their personality (physical) has not changed.
Assume that they like ………………………..whatever…leave it, its confusing me again..
One assumption goes wrong and you are headed off in the tangential direction.
Went on a little shopping marathon with my sister, yesterday in Dallas. Had a good time, gotto spend some undivided attention time with her, which is getting more n more infrequent over the years. I think gals have this wonderful in-built sense of dressing, color combos, subtle differences, they don’t even have to think about it. I try to break this art into science as much as possible. I have a color combination chart, designed my some fashion honcho on my phone to guide me through these troubled waters.
She asked me about a saree that my little sister wore for her reception a year ago. (Why don’t you ask me what was Manmohan Singh’s turban color on his 1st day in office. Better luck.!!!!) Then she tried reminding me that it was a little pink. So what about it…. All sarees are the same pink right..!!!!
She was so pissed off, coz apparently it had three different shades of pink and she had gone great lengths just to get the combination right. She ended up admiring my super fine observation skills in clothing, esp gal’s and complemented that I was the worst person to ever discuss women’s dressing with…. THANK U.
Probably the wires in the brain which connect dressing sense, color combinations and different shades got unplugged when my biology teacher in HPS used to pull my hair before slapping me for dozing off in 5th class. That’s where it all went wrong.
Colognes is an even crookier business. Earlier, went to a cologne store, same shit…different store. Most of the top brands, smell more or less the same. I tried sniffing as much coffee seeds as I could, before I smelt a different cologne, still they all smell the same. I just smelt plain cardboard on few of the samples he gave me. Wanted to ask him, if he really sprayed the cologne, but resisted and passed off a random neutral comment to hide my handicap. Just stuck with my same old trusted brands……Armani’s Aqua Di Gio, andThierry Mugler’s Angel Men.
I hope all men are the same with the basic difference that I mention my handicap later, the rest forget to mention it forever……….
