New Year's Eve Shopping

Originally written on the 31^st of December 2006, at Raffles City.

At shopping with Hwei Min on New Year's Eve. At Raffles City now. Spent the first half an hour looking at bedlinen, cutlery, even baby items at Robinson's to plan how to spend her voucher she won during her company's dinner and dance. I enjoyed myself marginally for that, but well ... I am bored already.

Now I am standing outside G2000 waiting for her. I would much rather watch people than look at clothes. We've been in G2000 so many times already! I don't want to buy anything! She doesn't want to buy anything either!

Once again, this is an example of the fundamental difference between Hwei Min and myself, and judging from experiences recounted by all our friends, most men and women as well.

First of all, I think the common misconception that men hate shopping is wholly untrue. It's just that men and women have a different definition of the word "shopping".

When men shop, we look for something at the shop, find it, buy it. Men ENJOY the satisfaction of getting what we want tremendously. We want to go home immediately to use the new device or gadget (usually) that we have bought.

When women shop, they mean walking around, looking around at things that catch their eye, buy something that catches their eye. And the words ‘SALE’ or ‘OFFER’ or ‘… % OFF!’ really catches their eyes. Usually, the words are in red, but they don’t always have to be. Never ask a woman if they need something, or what they want to achieve from the shopping trip. They don’t know most of the time.

Now I don’t know about other men, though I suspect it to be the same for them. I do not enjoy women’s way of shopping. In fact, it causes real pain to my back. Mysteriously, my lower back aches faster than it normally does when I am just walking around, waiting for Hwei Min to shop.

I found that my back aches are alleviated 50% almost as soon as I stepped out of the shop. The pain is then alleviated a further 25% if I am looking at electronic devices, music CDs, games or DVDs. If I were to sit down somewhere where I can play at a LAN shop, or if I were to go to some new historical site and I can take my pictures, the pain will be 100% gone!

If what I read from ‘Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus’ is true, then this is very easy to explain. Men are motivated by a goal. Women are motivated by senses.

So to a man, shopping without a goal is, literally, a pain. Our testosterone levels drop tremendously, and thus I feel the backache.

Women however, need the shopping to raise their oxytocin levels. They need the flood to their senses. In fact, women actually enjoy talking, and asking for opinions on what to buy. They enjoy the feeling of togetherness.

So a proposal for couples…

- State how much time you spend shopping together at the start (SENSORY), so that men can aim to complete that time (GOAL).

- Then the men can go wander off and do something else that has a purpose, like maybe play a game, or even get a drink, (a GOAL) while the ladies can continue their shopping (SENSORY)

- Then, meet together again at a stated time and place. (a GOAL).

- Then the men can help the ladies make a choice on what to buy, of all those things that she has found. (SENSORY).

Wonderful? Hope that this works for you. Now to convince Hwei Min that we should follow this.