My girlfriend wants a new bra for her birthday. Not an especially particular type, just a bra that fits comfortably. She's even taken the trouble of showing me the precise one she wants. I am not a lingerie expert, so I am glad for the advice, if not a little taken aback by the brazen, pragmatic approach. I was thinking about something a bit quirky, or musical maybe, perhaps a new classical guitar or even a pair of running shoes. But if she wants bra, then fine, a bra it is.I'm not accustomed to shopping for lingerie any more than I am for women's shoes, but I keep telling myself as I walk into town I am not really actually shopping for lingerie, you know, like spending hours browsing through women's lingerie like it's my hobby. I'm not even particularly self-conscious.
As I pass the bookshop it starts to drizzle. I shuffle amongst the trickle of Monday afternoon shoppers and wonder if I should have brought an umbrella. Then I wonder if I have even got an umbrella. Wasn't there one by the door for a while? Whose was it? Mine, or did a friend of hers' leave it behind?
Whatever, I can always pop into a bar and grab a coffee if it starts to pour down. This is my afternoon off so I may as well do something as well as just buying a bra for my girlfriend's birthday.
It's not a lingerie shop but a department store with a lingerie bit in it. As the escalator carries me into the loft heights of the upper floor of the shop, I suddenly become quite self conscious of what I am about to do. The reality of queuing whilst holding a bra grips me with fear. This is unusual. I'm not some ultra confident person neither stupidly shy. I just don't like the idea of it. I'd feel... well, just pretty dumb.
It's childish, I know, and I shrug it off. I head straight to the lingerie section and take the right bra. I'm walking with it and then stop, turn and put it straight back and leave the shop.
What have I just done? I've copped out of something that really, honestly, nobody else in the world would actually care about whether I did or didn't.
I was embarrassed. How on earth could I have been embarrassed? Maybe it is genetic. Maybe it's society indoctrinating in me some clichéd and out-dated behaviour. Who knows, but it surprises me. Maybe I'm just having a strange sort of day.
Back at home and on the web I type in the name of the shop into my browser and click on through to the online lingerie section to find the bra my girlfriend wanted. It's there all right. Same colour, size, price. I select it and pay for it.
So I've bought some lingerie online, out of a misplaced and bizarre fear of buying it in a shop, but I guess although in haphazard way, I did actually get the lingerie, online or otherwise.
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