Read Online Kiss Me Like You Mean It by Dr. David Clarke - Free Book Online
Authors: Dr. David Clarke
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clothes she purchased and giving a fashion show, and calling family members and girlfriends to describe in excruciating detail the items she purchased.
Of course, sometimes Sandy comes home empty-handed from a shopping safari. She can shop for three hours and buy nothing. Absolutely nothing! Amazingly, coming home with zilch doesn’t bother her in the least! She considers it time well spent. She does love to buy things, but that’s only a part of the adventure. She also loves looking at all the items, talking with all the salespersons, and spending time with her shopping companions.
When I’m shopping with Sandy and it looks as though she’s not going to buy anything, I panic. I’ve told her, “Honey, please buy something! Anything! How about that antique Chinese vase? I don’t care if it’s five hundred dollars. Buy it. If you buy nothing, we’ve wasted our time!”
When I shop, if I’m not able to buy what I came to buy, it’s a disaster! I’m furious. I feel cheated. Humiliated. I have lost. I’ve failed to achieve my objective. For me, a shopping trip is a mission. Operation: Locate and Buy Something I Need. I have a clearly defined item as my goal, tight time parameters, and I zero in on accomplishing the mission.
The differences between men and women in the shopping arena are huge. Let me illustrate with how Sandy and I each shop for shoes. (Before I describe the shoe-shopping process, it’s important to note that Sandy has at least two dozen pairs of shoes.) I am the proud and cost conscious owner of three pairs of shoes. When one of my three pairs of shoes wears out, I go to the shoe store and buy the exact same pair of shoes. I walk in and tell the sales clerk I want to buy the same shoes I’m wearing. He hands me the shoebox. I buy the shoes. I walk back to my car, and I drive away. I’m thinking, “Wow! That took ten minutes. A new record! And I beat that guy in the Florida Gator T-shirt to the counter. Sweet!”
When Sandy shops for shoes, it takes as much time and effort as the Lewis and Clark expedition across America. She goes to the mall and walks through twenty shoe stores. She touches eighty percent of the shoes in those stores and tries on fifty percent. She has a pretty good idea of the kind of shoe she wants, but is in no hurry to find it.
She wanders up and down the aisles of shoes, searching for that one perfect pair of shoes. It’s out there. She knows it’s out there. She picks up a pair, feels them, turns them around, talks about how she feels about them, and mentions the outfits she could wear with them. If a pair passes this initial inspection, she’ll try it on and walk around. She asks me what I think—like it matters—and then replaces the shoes and moves on.
Sandy gets distracted continually by other stores and the items they offer for sale. She’ll exclaim, “Oh, that’s cute,” and walk over to the cute item and finger it. I say, “I thought we were shopping for shoes.” She gives me a look that says, “You don’t get it, do you? I’m shopping here!” She ends up going into every store in the mall, with the exception of the tobacco shop.
Sandy’s checklist for a pair of shoes is: style, color, brand, fit, outfits it will match, price, and friendliness of the salesperson. Speaking for myself, I don’t care if Frankenstein is the salesperson, as long as he is holding the box with the shoes I want. But for her, the most important determining factor is her vibe about the shoes. How do they make her feel? No vibe, no purchase. Sandy will wait two hours or twenty hours until she gets the vibe. When that bolt of intuition and inspiration strikes, that’s when she will buy the shoes.
No More Shopping, No More Fun
For the first eight to ten years of our marriage, I went regularly with Sandy on her shopping trips. That’s why I can describe them so well. But frankly, I got tired of going with her. I began to have these kind of thoughts: “I hate shopping.
Of course, sometimes Sandy comes home empty-handed from a shopping safari. She can shop for three hours and buy nothing. Absolutely nothing! Amazingly, coming home with zilch doesn’t bother her in the least! She considers it time well spent. She does love to buy things, but that’s only a part of the adventure. She also loves looking at all the items, talking with all the salespersons, and spending time with her shopping companions.
When I’m shopping with Sandy and it looks as though she’s not going to buy anything, I panic. I’ve told her, “Honey, please buy something! Anything! How about that antique Chinese vase? I don’t care if it’s five hundred dollars. Buy it. If you buy nothing, we’ve wasted our time!”
When I shop, if I’m not able to buy what I came to buy, it’s a disaster! I’m furious. I feel cheated. Humiliated. I have lost. I’ve failed to achieve my objective. For me, a shopping trip is a mission. Operation: Locate and Buy Something I Need. I have a clearly defined item as my goal, tight time parameters, and I zero in on accomplishing the mission.
The differences between men and women in the shopping arena are huge. Let me illustrate with how Sandy and I each shop for shoes. (Before I describe the shoe-shopping process, it’s important to note that Sandy has at least two dozen pairs of shoes.) I am the proud and cost conscious owner of three pairs of shoes. When one of my three pairs of shoes wears out, I go to the shoe store and buy the exact same pair of shoes. I walk in and tell the sales clerk I want to buy the same shoes I’m wearing. He hands me the shoebox. I buy the shoes. I walk back to my car, and I drive away. I’m thinking, “Wow! That took ten minutes. A new record! And I beat that guy in the Florida Gator T-shirt to the counter. Sweet!”
When Sandy shops for shoes, it takes as much time and effort as the Lewis and Clark expedition across America. She goes to the mall and walks through twenty shoe stores. She touches eighty percent of the shoes in those stores and tries on fifty percent. She has a pretty good idea of the kind of shoe she wants, but is in no hurry to find it.
She wanders up and down the aisles of shoes, searching for that one perfect pair of shoes. It’s out there. She knows it’s out there. She picks up a pair, feels them, turns them around, talks about how she feels about them, and mentions the outfits she could wear with them. If a pair passes this initial inspection, she’ll try it on and walk around. She asks me what I think—like it matters—and then replaces the shoes and moves on.
Sandy gets distracted continually by other stores and the items they offer for sale. She’ll exclaim, “Oh, that’s cute,” and walk over to the cute item and finger it. I say, “I thought we were shopping for shoes.” She gives me a look that says, “You don’t get it, do you? I’m shopping here!” She ends up going into every store in the mall, with the exception of the tobacco shop.
Sandy’s checklist for a pair of shoes is: style, color, brand, fit, outfits it will match, price, and friendliness of the salesperson. Speaking for myself, I don’t care if Frankenstein is the salesperson, as long as he is holding the box with the shoes I want. But for her, the most important determining factor is her vibe about the shoes. How do they make her feel? No vibe, no purchase. Sandy will wait two hours or twenty hours until she gets the vibe. When that bolt of intuition and inspiration strikes, that’s when she will buy the shoes.
No More Shopping, No More Fun
For the first eight to ten years of our marriage, I went regularly with Sandy on her shopping trips. That’s why I can describe them so well. But frankly, I got tired of going with her. I began to have these kind of thoughts: “I hate shopping.
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