I have never been a "shopper" in the truest sense of the word. If I needed something, if at all possible I'd dispatch M to get it for me. If I absolutely had to go myself either because they couldn't or because I needed to actually make a decision there, well I'd go; but I'd be as prepared as I could and get in and get out. In those occurrences if I was with M, I'd often spend copious amounts of time in the car messing with my phone or reading an actual newspaper (I know who actually reads a physical paper anymore? <G>). Even as I developed into a cross-dress - or at least so I thought at the time, M always brought home the clothes, shoes, etc., that I'd wear; I just didn't like to shop and when it came to "that kind" of shopping, well that just wasn't going to happen. As M and I got divorced and then reconciled into friends, this trend continued. Even as I met and eventually married J, it was the same - except now I had two people that could/would do my shopping.
Once the transition started, I knew the wardrobe that I had wasn't going to work for me. Don't get me wrong, the vast majority of what I had were all very nice things - even if they were mostly picked up on sale, clearance, or even in some cases at resale and/or thrift shops. However, they weren't *me*. A great many of what I thought were the cute items were meant for somebody 10-20 years younger than me, shorter skirts, tops that showed way too much skin, and so on. Of what was left, most of that seemed to be for somebody 10-20 years older than me. Things that I'd expect a grandmother to wear, so suddenly I was in pickle. I wanted to look nice, but I wanted to look nice for a 40-ish year old woman and that meant pretty much starting over. This is by no means an indictment on M or J for the wardrobe I had, the things that were "too young" were all styles I really liked and would wear around the house, but just didn't feel comfortable wearing out; the "too old" ones - well those often helped hide the body hair and male figure and again they were great around the house, but I couldn't see myself out in public in them.
Me being me, wanted a certain type of clothes, but I just wanted them to "appear" as they always had. Both M and J tried and they did pick up several nice things; but it was really hit or miss. It put me in a bad place as I was grateful for their efforts and I didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings, but some of the stuff that came home - well I just didn't like it. Some of it was what I'd call "frumpy", some of it would show too much skin for my taste, some of it were just simply colors and/or patterns I didn't care for. Then there was the problem of fitting me since I was significantly larger on top than bottom and as this was pre-HRT, my hips and such weren't really proportioned for women's clothing. Even the things I did like often suffered from poor fit issues for these reasons.
The solution was obvious, but it was something I wasn't sure that I could handle - I needed to start actually going shopping. For many (most?) people reading this you may be thinking "what's the issue with that?", and I can understand that viewpoint. But for me, to say I'm anti-social would be very polite at best. It's not that I don't like people, despite me always joking to that effect. I do like people, I just lack social grace. I can make plenty of excuses as to why, but they really don't matter and I'm not a fan of excuses anyway.
Now, by the time I came to the the realization that I needed to actually get out of the house and shop with M and/or J, it was a few months into my transition and I was leaving the house sporadically as Madison, but these were generally simple trips out like going to lunch with M and/or J. Just enough to get me out in public as Madison, but for short periods of time in reasonably controlled environments. Now J has never been really into shopping, but I knew how M shopped and that concerned me. She may or may not spend a lot of money when she shopped, but she always hit plenty of stores and spent copious amounts of time in each. The worst were thrift shops, she could easily spend two plus hours in one browsing around. That had always frustrated me as I couldn't imagine spending that much time in a store and possibly coming out with nothing, but it was how she shopped.
Now some might question why I wouldn't just shop on my own instead and I did consider that. However, sizing was going to be a problem for me since apparently no two companies make women's clothing in the same size. I mean both companies may say their jeans are a size x, but they are seldom really equivalent in size. Well why didn't I just try the stuff on? Well, I was terrified of using a dressing room as Madison. Perhaps not as terrified of the restroom, but it was a close second. Style was also a problem for me, I could easily pick out a particular item that I liked and it looked great on it's own; but I couldn't really correctly pair it up with something else. So I'd pick out a couple of really nice tops, but then finding a bottom to match, well that was going to be an issue. However, as big of an issue as those were the overriding issue is that I felt I needed to shop as Madison so I'd at least be reasonably comfortable in the women's section - something about holding clothes up to me when I wasn't presenting as Madison was uncomfortable to say the least; and to tell the truth I wasn't ready to be out in public as Madison alone. It wasn't that I didn't want to, I just wasn't ready.
Well, what I had intended on being a reasonably short entry has gotten semi-long and I haven't even really gotten to what I wanted to talk about so I'm going to have to split this entry - I seem to do that a lot - and pick up with it later on or tomorrow. As always thanks for reading.
- M
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