HOLD ON TO YOUR UNDERWEAR

     Hi. I am a person who does not like to shop. Hence, I at this moment am wearing pants that belong to my cousin and a shirt that was a birthday present. (Also note, I am still in my pajamas at noon) Why don’t I like to shop for clothes? (Let’s be clear I like to shop for other things such as spatulas.) But clothes are a WHOLE ENTIRE DIFFERENT ANIMAL than spatulas. For starters, people seem to equate clothes with everything: how much money you make, how much you care about yourself, what your personality is like, what you think about cloning. I, myself,  get stressed out by the pressure of it. Does this plain t- shirt say something about me? Am I boring? Am I safe? Too safe in my decision making? Should I move somewhere and start a cult to break out of my “plain boring t-shirt safe decision making” habit?!

      For some reason, clothes shopping has always made me spiral. The weight of “I have to buy something, yet I am broke and don’t need anything” hangs heavy on me while shopping with friends. When I shopped for my Prom dress I bought the first and last dress I tried on within ten minutes of being inside Macys. I wear mostly hand me downs from my sister. My favorite coat was given to me by my ex-boyfriend whose ex girlfriend left it at his apartment. Yes, I shamelessly wear these free second hand clothes with pleasure because not only did they not cost me anything, BUT they don’t have stake in my personal identity since I did not myself pick them out. I know that’s a strange, unnecessarily heavy conclusion to make about one’s wardrobe, but hell, I AM clinically insane, so it’s not that strange. Anyways, this is supposed to be a guide to how to avoid shopping and how to survive it when it has to happen, so here are my tips?

1.) When a friend asks you to go shopping and you of course would rather chew on a dehydrate pig ear, just say “Maybe not today, I JUST went shopping and am all SHOPPED OUT!” That way the friend will still be under the impression that you like shopping. Also “shopped out” is a really great phrase.  Well, it’s not that great. Nevermind.

2.) When you absolutely can’t flake on a friend and you have to suck it up and go to the mall, just make sure to look like your shopping. This is done by thumbing through random dresses on the rack while nodding your head, or maybe by holding up a shirt and saying “Cute.” All of this will give the illusion that you are, in fact, shopping and NOT wandering around aimlessly thinking about how empty the universe is and how final death is. 

3.) When your friend asks for advice on what looks “good”, just say “Yea, it’s really flattering on you.” It’s always nice to be positive and also you want to give them a yes or no answer that will speed up the process all together. If you  give them an “I don’t know, I have no thoughts on that shirt, It’s a shirt, Who cares?” answer, this will perplex them and probably lead to more trips to the fitting room. 

4.) I don’t really have another tip, taking phone calls that don’t actually exist is a good excuse to stand outside a store until your friend comes out or claiming that you’re starving- most malls have a Ruby Tuesday, you could kill a good four hours there by yourself easy.