Just Looking

As girls and women wonder through the malls together they are often met with well meaning sales persons asking if they need any help. The response “Just looking,” usually sends them away. That gives us girl the privacy we need to talk some more.

Most men seem to think that when women go to the malls is just going to mean money leaving the bank account. While that does happen so does some thing else; time together to talk and catch up and see nice things in the window.

I make sure the when I go to the malls it doesn’t add up to a huge bill. I know that doesn’t happen in other families. For my girlfriends and myself we use this time as bonding and quality time. Why go to the mall to do this? Why not? There are restaurants and nice things to look at. All the time we are talking about our families and jobs.

The conversations can be very intimate depending on how close we are, and it doesn’t take long to get there. Half-way through the mall we can be talking about pap tests and confess whether or not we have ever faked an orgasm. To men this may seem like too much.

But ask yourself, has your girlfriend ever talked about something that was bothering her while you were in the grocery store or other public place? Did you feel it wasn’t the right time or place? That is because that doesn’t exist for women. Any place with a close friend and more so with a boyfriend or husband is the right place to say something. Be it the shoe store or Starbucks or the produce isle of the store. If it bothers her enough to bring it up, my advice, listen.

What I am trying to say is this: Time spent at the mall is not about the items in the windows, it’s about girl time. So when we are with men, we still have this frame of mind. Time together is the right time to talk about the home or problems we are having and time to really be with our men.

It does not need to be, after dinner before your go to bed, only when you are relaxed. As women we have had to learn this, because if we talk to you at other times you don’t want to hear us. So rather than thinking going to the mall as a big hole in your pocket book, go with your girl, you can then monitor spending and if she brings up personal things, let her. You may not end up spending any money but gain an understanding into what is going on with her.

If you let her go on and on about life and work and as the sales people come up she may not want to stop talking and off-handily tell them, “Just looking.”