The complicated wonder that is female.....

In many ways, I am your typical female.

I have no sense of direction whatsoever. It took me 45 minutes to find the Pye's house in West End and I often find myself lost in riverside gardens. I cannot read a map unless it is upside down, or at least facing in the direction of the the imaginary road in my head. I am terrible at parking. I can be overly-emotional, overly-clingy, and overly-dramatic. I will spend 10 minutes talking about a grasshopper, a cute little girl and a pencil and expect Mark to understand that I am explaining the content of my SOSE lecture, without actually mentioning the words SOSE or lecture. My thought processes are often convoluted, to say the least. I like flowers. I love coffee and chocolate. I feel cranky if I go for long periods of time without coffee or chocolate. I can't help but go all mushy when I see a beautiful baby. I frequently lack logic and rationality.

In a lot of ways, I fit the stereotype. However, there are many ways that I don't. One of my non-stereotypically female attributes was brought to my attention today. I don't particularly enjoy clothes shopping. Obviously this is partly to do with my Uni student budget, however I really don't derive intense pleasure, fulfillment and excitement from buying clothes. Today, I needed to buy a dress. Mark's graduation is at the end of the year, and the only formal dress that I own is a bridesmaids dress that I have already worn on two occasions (other than the wedding). Because this is a special occasion, I thought that it would be nice to buy something new. Plus, with Uni becoming increasingly busy, today presented a convenient opening for a spot of shopping. So, armed with a coffee, I headed to Stockies and entered the first dress shop that I came across. I had a quick squiz and noticed two dresses that were quite nice. I tried on the first dress: didn't like it. I tried on the second dress: quite liked it. I opened the dressing room curtain and said to the shop keeper "Do you think this looks ok?". She replied "Yes dear, that looks lovely!". That was good enough for me. I got changed, bought the dress (which was a great price, hurrah!) and left the shop in less than 10 minutes. I hadn't even finished my coffee. That, dear reader, is what you call efficient shopping.

Now, this isn't to say that I simply took the lazy option rather than looking for a dress that I really liked. This dress is very lovely. It's made up of beautiful colours and is a style that I quite like (long and kind of hippy-like apparently). When it comes to clothes shopping, you need to know what you are looking for and what you like, otherwise you will waste hours and come away poor and exhausted. There are about 1000 different kinds of dresses that I wouldn't even consider because they are either inappropriate, gaudy or strange; so I don't waste my time looking at them. Even as I write this, I'm aware of how 'male' this is sounding (i.e. logical).

If you are one of those women who enjoy shopping; more power to you. Lots of women enjoy the social bonding phenomenon that is window shopping. I'd much rather spend time outdoors. However I'm so glad that we've all been made so differently. God knew what he was doing when He only created one of me. All of that said... to my female readers; I would encourage you to try efficient shopping sometime. It may prove to dramatically decrease frustration levels and free up more time for coffee, chocolate, figuring out how to get your car out of the car park, and allowing for the inevitability of getting lost on the way home.