The 8 Ways You Lose Your Mind When Shopping

Sorry to get all Sex and The City for a second, but it really is true that when us lasses hit the shops something weird happens to our brains. From heady serotonin highs to crushing Primark lows, it’s all too easy to lose our minds out there.

Here's what might (has?) happened to you:

For some reason, shopping has a very powerful hallucinogenic effect on your imagination. Catch a whiff of a seasonal discount at Whistles and you suddenly forget who you are. You forget the last time you wore silk to a party was at your own Christening. In this new life you are not somebody who rolls from work to pub to bed to work. In this fantasy you have many high profile engagements. You imagine yourself into a 1920's saloon bar smoking cocktail cigarettes from a holder, or sashaying into a ball at the High Commissioner’s residence. 'I am going to wear this ALL THE TIME,' you convince whoever will listen. When it comes down to it though you chicken right out of said big purchase. It’s that, or be the only one at Dave's after-work leaving drinks in a backless maxi dress.

You have enough tiny joyful shit in your life to pretty much singlehandedly run the shoebox appeal. Glittery trainer socks, tiny, tiny purses for tiny tiny coins, hair grips. Must. Have. Hairgrips. What is this in a little box? CASHIER NUMBER THREE PLEASE. Fuck it, you’re having it. 'What does an adult woman need with a Pez?' asks the reasonable person in your head. 'I LOVE THE POWERFUFF GIRLS,' you scream back. Everybody looks around at you, but that doesn't matter because you have your Pez.

Shopping in Primark generally plays out like an epic battle scene. You've nearly broken your neck shuffling across the room in shoes bound together with elastic and dodged that lone lamb samosa on the changing room floor. By the time you get to the tills you feel like Sandra Bullock at the end of Gravity. Course, the only way to justify the horrendous journey you’ve been on is to buy all the random shit in your poorly-designed basket. For every fash forward gem you unearth in there you’ve purchased twenty more real crackers. Many of these items will never leave the confines of your flat (unless for fancy dress reasons.) Most of them will be made of that unsettlingly soft fleece material that makes you sweat a lot. All of them, without exception, will be deeply unsexy.

It’s unclear when exactly the free afternoon will jump out of your diary for all this customisation you’ve got planned. Garms lustfully purchased three sizes two big and three legs too long sit in bags in your wardrobe, ready for the haberdashery mood to take you. See also: ‘priceless’ second hand items that you were sure at the time would ‘sell on for a fortune.’

Normally you wouldn’t trust the opinions of people who follow you around a room grinning, but on your fluffy retail cloud anything goes. These people, with their snakehip walks and their overconfident perfume, do not have your best interests at heart. In fact, your worst interests are in perfect binary opposition to theirs. Still, you look trustingly into their hateful eyes as they feign surprise at how they ‘didn’t expect it to look that good on you’ and ‘they definitely look better as a set.’ They despise us and we know it, but we just let them convince us to spend our last fifty quid on a single bar of soap.

In the real world other people can be a pleasure. Sometimes even a delight. You let them into your life, make love to them, even marry them. But on the shiny concourse of the Zara sale, those people are no longer people to you. This is Battle Royale and they are the enemy. It’s each man for themselves. Put it down for a second and your leather skirt has been swiped from under your nose. You tolerate these creatures with respectful rage, sigh as they check seventeen items into the changing room and shadow you at the bargain bin. Be assured, there is a special lift down to Hell for people who take their double buggies clothes shopping.

**Oh internet, lovely internet aren’t you good? You made Bat Kid happen and leaked all that stuff about naughty politicians. You brought us all those videos of otters and pictures of Kim Kardashian’s big botty. What didn’t come with the internet though, was a guide to dealing with how batshit bonkers it would make you. Chewing the skin off your fingers in 4am eBay binges, buying 72 packs of toilet roll on Groupon (just me? Ok, then) filling a teeny imaginary basket with actual clothes that you will never, ever wear. The sheer convenience of Paypal and 1-click ordering has turned you into an Amazon junkie. Let’s not even get started on those Pinboards of lust. Oh the hours you’ve lost on Esty…

**In the same way your feet expand by about three sizes - turning your toes into individual chipolatos - every single time you 'take to the air' (frankly we'd much prefer to be a member of The Mile High Club, than a founding member of Ginormous In Flight Feet), rushing all over the high street can turn your hooves into inflatable, sweaty pieces of gammon. Nothing is more embarassing than pretending that you can't see the Office shop assistant staring daggers at you as you ram your stinky feet into a shoe which you are adamant is normally your size.

Follow Lucy on Twitter @lucyhancock

This article originally appeared on The Debrief.