I took my girlfriend shopping last weekend. She needed to buy some shoes for work so I thought I would be the supportive boyfriend and drive her to the mall and spend a bit of quality time with her. Maybe we would have a coffee after the shopping and talk about us (yes we are at that stage). Having not had a steady girlfriend for two years, I had completely forgotten how genetically different were males and females were when it came to the act of shopping.

I parked the car at the underground parking of the mall and as soon as I had taken the keys out of the ignition and before I was out of the door, she was already in the first shop looking at dresses. I slowly paced my way to her and just as I was about to question the reason why she was looking at dresses, she turns around and asks me if the dress she's holding is pretty. Another thing I had forgotten during my extended hiatus in singledom was that when a woman asks you if it looks good, the answer is usually yes, otherwise she wouldn't have asked. It's confirmation she wants, not interrogation.

So needless to say, she buys the dress and the next three hours are a whirlwind tour of the mall in ways I had never expected. We went to stores I had never known to exist. We window shopped an average of ten shops per minute; and it was efficient. Sometimes we stopped to buy something and other times, she tried on things that she already knew she wouldn't buy. I never dared to ask why she was trying them on. I just moved seamlessly and silently between the shoppers and all the items on sale.

At the end we never had the coffee and she forgot about buying the shoes for work.  She did however have a wonderful day and assumed I had the exact same feeling. I didn't want to spoil the moment. I just smiled knowing I would get my payback next time we go watch a football game together.