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We all have  our dos and donts, try tos and try not tos when it comes to relationships which we choose to either stick to or compromise on for the sake of short term or long term happiness. Me?  I’ve made it one of my general rules to attempt to avoid clothes shopping with the Mrs as much as feasibly possible.

Mrs: Hey you wanna come down West with me this Saturday?

JC: *Tracee Ellis Ross eyes* Uhm…Hell No I can’t

Mrs: Why?

JC: Hm? because me and the boys are uhm…we are…sky….diving, we’re sky diving for charity

Mrs: Which charity?

JC: Which Charity? The…National, I mean International, House For…Bulumic and Extinct Chihuahuas…in Dorset..yep the good old IHBEC..D

Don’t get me wrong, spending time with one’s girl is always pleasing and I’d have fun shopping with her…for the first two hours; after that I’m trying to find the nearest restaurant so we can eat I can fake yawn and then go home! Because I know after that second hour I’m trapped; and will be resigned to the role of the Yes Man, the Geoffrey and more importantly the other side of the shopping code.

Most men have a pretty strategic and straightforward shopping code, we slightly browse, we spot our item, we buy, we leave. We usually know what we want to buy, how much we want to spend on it and know what 10 stores we’re  likely to buy our clothes from. Women generally run by a whole different code….they browse, they browse, they browse, they spot the  item they want, they pick it up, they pose, they ask questions (The Yes Man), they browse, they browse, they pick up another item  “Mmmm”, they browse, they pick up more items, they may try them on, they pick another size, they browse, they tell you to hold them (The Geoffrey), they then buy! (of course with you there that is now optional) this takes between 20mins to an hour and we’re only in one shop.

Maybe I exaggerated a little (let me delete one “they browse”) but the adopted notion is that women know what they want to buy but that isn’t necessarily where they will stop, they also have a minimum spend that they eventually increase for those pairs of shoes and will plan to go to three shops but end up going in twenty three. I’m just saying a woman’s average time in one shop can range from the length of an Eastenders Episode to the length of a Cherubim and Seraphim Church service . You have to be mentally and physically prepared for this which makes a brother avoid it every so often. Another reason why I avoid it is if she tries to Kanye me.

She tried to Kanye Me

Deeper than this

A few years back I decided to go on a rare clothes shopping spree and invited the Mrs to come out with me. Now usually I have an idea of what I want to buy (as stated earlier) but this time around I thought I’d take a chance and see what looked appealing in my 10 stores on Oxford Street. This of course meant that the Mrs had more than enough motivation to join me; she was spending time with her man AND she had more room for input on what I should wear.

First up TopMan, the epicentre of casual.  We start browsing, I see my friend working at the till and naturally activate the stereotype in my head “DISCOUNT!”. As we go towards the sweater section the Mrs vears off into the T-shirts section, I spot a few tops I like; fitted…not to loose that they look like fancy dress costumes and not too tight that I can see my heartbeat in them; I pick them up and head towards the changing room, on my way there my girl calls out and hands me some T-shirts to try on. In the changing rooms I try them on and I’m satisfied with most, then I turn my attention to my girl’s choices. I put one on and jump back in shock…not at the fact that the t-shirt was so small that it looked like I was rocking a belly top no…It was the UPPER CASE V-NECK *WARNING: Man Code violation*.  The V was soooo deep it looked like a thin blazer *side eye* *raised eyebrow*. The other T-shirts were the same in different colours reminiscent of Steve Harvey suits. What is she playing at?

Needless to say I rejected those and bought the tops along with some other stuff (with discount). We move on from Topman and things were fine at first, bought trainers, jeans and a jacket from various shops; then we hit Selfridges. I decided I wanted another pair of jeans so I wanted to go Levi’s but she insists on Diesel; when we get to Diesel I pick out some jeans I like, she doesn’t like them and opts for the skinniest jeans I’ve ever seen! “These are nice!” yeah if you want to cut off circulation to my nuts. I have pretty powerful legs (should’ve been an athlete) so skinny jeans could never be an option even if I liked them. “Try them on first, please for me, I think they’re nice” I  try them on and as I thought I lost my manhood all feeling in my legs. Needless to say I rejected those and bought my own pairs of jeans.

It was the same story all over Selfridges, though we agreed on some clothes, she kept on picking out random items  from these all red nike high tops to fur and sheepskin jackets. Needless to say I rejected those and went home scratching my head at her fashion tips. Cue my birthday a couple weeks later and those same clothes I rejected, she bought me as presents. I accepted the gifts with no plans to ever don them outside the house and then got to thinking….she’s trying to Kanye me.

Yeezy taught her but I refuse to let him dress me

It had come to my attention that her obsession with Kanye West had been increasingly growing as a result of his “swag”. More than a few facebook/BB photos, the purchase of 808s (you could only be a Kanye stan to like that album, just saying), a growing internet history of Kanye related internet searches and various mentions of his dress code had solidified this for me. That was all fine…but leave me out of it!

It’s cool to model yourself off of celeb fashion icons or any fashion look as a matter of fact  if you want to, but don’t incorporate that into your partner (unless they are truly open to it). We all give suggestions to our other half of  what we’d like them to wear, it’s natural..in small doses. The Mrs  however tried to give me an extreme makeover, this aint the Tyra show!

Yeah sure Kanye takes fashion chances (at a 50% success rate) but I don’t. The skinny jeans with high tops look is not for me! I like my V’s lower case and my colours in rational doses. I like my jackets cotton or leather, not once alive now dead. Indeed she admitted that she had tried to Kanye me (not in those exact words) and we spoke on it. Problem solved.

Ladies take note: You can’t shape/change a brother into something he doesn’t want to be

JC