I went shopping this week ... with my girlfriend. For most men, that sounds like the opening lines to a horror movie. Women are always saying they want their man to show more emotion. Well ladies, here's the answer. Tell your guy that you want him to come shopping all day with you, and you will finally see him weep like a little girl. And if you break the news during the final game of a best-of-seven series, you should make sure there aren't any guns in the apartment.
For a guy, shopping with a woman is slightly less fun than giving birth to a bag of rusty nails. Guys will do anything to avoid shopping. If we decide we need new jeans, we'll try to find other ways to get them without going to a store. We'll search eBay to see if anyone has a used pair of jeans up for bidding. Or we'll begin wearing whatever we can find around the house. "Baggy is popular. I'll just wrap the drapes around me."
If all else fails, guys finally will go to a store to buy something, but we won't "shop." Shopping implies hours upon hours of looking at clothes. A guy will enter the store, grab the first pair of jeans in sight (even if it's currently on another customer), and get the hell out of there.
Shopping with a woman is completely different. With women there is browsing, trying on, comparing prices, accessorizing, and much more. (There are no accessories for guys. Accessories for us are beer and pretzels.)
We don't even know what we're supposed to be doing while we're following a woman around. We just repeat, "Oh, that looks nice. You look slender in that," and pray that the next store has a couch. (That couch is like an oasis in a desert. Any guy in a woman's clothing store will sell his soul for as much as a lawn chair.)
Women constantly ask us if certain outfits look good. Ladies, let me break it down for you once and for all. The official stand of the male race concerning women's clothing is: "The less material, the better. The tighter, the better."
Other than that, we have no opinion. Half the time, for all we can tell, you've tried on 14 pairs of the exact same pants.
The only thing for a guy to do in a women's clothing store is stare at the pictures and the mannequins. Women, tell me why these mannequins are so hot? Half of them don't even have heads, but what a body! Ladies, if you want us to realize how good you look while you're trying on those clothes, stop putting the Playboy bunny mannequins all over the place. Otherwise this will continue to be the situation:
Woman: "Sweetheart, how does this look?"
Man: "Uh, ... actually, Honey. I'm going home with the mannequin. Check out her rock-hard ass. I think she works out."
Another reason being in a women's clothing store is so awkward for men is that the salespeople always run up and say, "How can I help you?" This worries guys. We feel like we're being accused of something, so we quickly blurt out: "I'm with my girlfriend. She dragged me in here. I've never tried on women's clothing! ... At least not that I care to discuss."
There's also the fact that we're outnumbered. We become frightened in a store with 50 women and two guys. And it's not just the numbers, it's the atmosphere too. The clothes, the wallpaper, the pictures, the smell. Everything's against us. If it were 50 women and two guys in a hot tub, we'd be perfectly happy.
On every shopping trip with a girlfriend, there also comes the point in which she wants to help the guy shop. This is bad news, but sometimes we get sucked into it. In any men's department store, at least half the men are being dragged around by girlfriends or wives. The worst part is having to try things on. Guys don't try on. We'd rather buy it, take it home, wear it for a day, realize it's too tight, use it to wash our car, and then throw it away. That's the trying-on process for a man. So if the guy gets forced into trying something on, he then has to go through the walk of shame from the dressing room out to the girlfriend. It's always a very slow, sad walk, maybe without shoes on. He finally gets to her, and she says, "Those are too big, right? Here's eight other pairs to try on, and some shirts that might go with them. I'll go see if I can find you some undies."
That's the point when the guy realizes he no longer even has a chance with the cute mannequin in the corner.
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