I am a shopaphobic. I hate shopping. I say this not out of moral superiority – quite the reverse. Especially this time of year, I feel real guilt about not being able to throw myself into coming up with the perfect gifts for those I love. The overriding symptoms of my condition are hair-tearing impatience the minute I enter even the tiniest shop and paralyzing indecisiveness when confronted with a purchase, both of which I read as character flaws that mark me as not a truly giving person.

Materialistic as it is, shopping isn’t about spending money. Not having shopping skills creates problems in unrelated areas of my life. When I travel, for example, the mention of a charming craft market and a free afternoon is not good news. Potentially more serious is the way that my lack of expertise in evaluating different merchandise makes me uncomfortable going for a second medical opinion. And my anxiety about returning something I bought extends to not complaining about shoddy work.

When I do need to buy something, I am handicapped by the fact that I don’t really know how to do it. So I usually go for one-stop shopping. I settle for a ball-park version of what I am looking for. And I usually end up paying either too much – after all, comparison shopping is shopping – or too little, because I don’t know how to shop for quality. A low point came a couple of years ago when I decided that the perfect gift for my daughter would be a pashmina shawl, like the one someone had given me that she borrowed all the time. I cruised a few boutiques but hadn’t found one that was square enough, when I came upon a street vendor with shawls that were the right size and the right color – for one tenth the price. I grabbed it. But when she opened the box and laid her eager hand on its not-anywhere-near-as-soft-as-the-real-thing surface, her face fell. She thanked me warmly, but she never wore it.

I am particularly aware of what it takes to be a real shopper, because I am married to one. He will spend days enthusiastically checking out all the possible sources for what he wants – even to the extent of seeing the perfect version but continuing with the search just to make sure and then adding another stop to his shopping by returning for it. Each venture becomes a personal seminar about the product, a chance to figure out what makes the right one exactly right and what ingredient he hadn’t thought of that would make it even better. That is only part of the process. The real sport for him is getting the best price. He checks Target weekly for designer shirts at 70% off. And he goes through the entire sales rack to make sure. For him shopping is an art form - a flea market is an opportunity to indulge his really spectacular ability to pick out the one real find and to get a bargain on it. For me it is like having a case of fleas – I can’t wait to get out of there.

To get back to the problem at hand, my real desire to find well-chosen and meaningful gifts this year for my friends and family. Here’s my plan: Every day for the next couple of weeks on the way to or from some appointment I will devote just a half an hour to shopping. I will look for items I’ve thought of and will keep my eyes open for things that jump out at me. After thirty minutes I will either buy what I think I have found that I think I like, or I will move on and try again the next day. I’m actually looking forward to this regimen. After all, phobias are no fun – and watching someone open a well-chosen gift is lots of fun.

Labels: gifts, holidays, shopping