How I Learned to Shop for My Wife
July 23, 2011, By Steve Kissing 0 comments
I am rare among men. I actually clothes shop⎯ successfully⎯for my wife, and I even enjoy doing so. For most men, clothes shopping for themselves is a headache-inducing hassle, but doing so for their wife or girlfriend usually amounts to torture worthy of Amnesty International’s attention.
I used to be such a guy. Not anymore. I’ve cracked the code and, in so doing, have not only earned my wife’s adoration, but the admiration of lots of women, particularly those who ring me out at pricey boutiques. I’m also the envy of many men who wish they, too, could figure out what to buy their sweetheart besides a Target gift card. But let me be clear: there was considerable trial and error along the path to feeling at home, or at least at ease, inside a woman’s boutique holding up a pair of panties to gauge if it’s the right size.
When I first conjured up the courage to buy clothes for my wife, Angie, I made the classic beginner’s mistake: Choosing items not based on what she may want or think she looks good in, but instead, what I thought she should want and would look good in. So I came home with some really booby, low-cut blouses, tight-fitting tube tops, and excessively snug sweaters, as well as anything that I could find at French Maids R Us. You get the idea. The effort was appreciated, at least at first, but eventually it fell…well, flat.
Once I moved beyond my boob fixation, I began to buy less revealing⎯some would say “trampy”⎯clothes. I pretty much stuck with name brands, the big ones, at least those I knew, such as The Gap and Old Navy. This was an improvement, for sure, but the mostly run-of-the-mill T-shirts, Capri pants, and hoodies I bought weren’t necessarily knocking Angie’s socks off.
Not to be defeated, I decided that I would do what I had heretofore avoided: Actually speak to someone in a woman’s clothing store. For guys, this is akin to asking for directions, only worse, because at least in that case we know what to ask⎯“How do I get from ‘here’ to ‘there’?”⎯even if we choose not to ask. When shopping for our main squeeze, however, guys don’t even know what to ask. To complicate matters further, we don’t have answers for the obvious questions posed to us, such as dress size, bra size and shoe size. Well, maybe bra size.
So I tentatively went into a woman’s boutique and asked the owner/sales clerk for help. She pulled this blouse and that blouse from the rack, this pair of jeans and then that one, this necklace and then that one. I pushed myself to envision my wife in each of the items. Some I couldn’t quite see, others I could. But I relied more on the sales person’s recommendations than my own gut instinct. It paid off. When I got home and presented the clothes to Angie, I could tell by her reaction that “I” did a great job. She was happy, ecstatic even, but more than that, she was shocked.
“Did you really pick this cute stuff out by yourself?” she asked.
“Of course,” I said, stretching the truth.
