Monday 20th October, 2003 – Birthday Whinger

It was Jane’s birthday on Saturday. We are firm believers that your birthday should be Your Big Day, with no expense spared, and every whim indulged. For 24 hours a year, the non-birthday partner has to put on his or her happiest face and accede to whatever demands are made of them by the birthday partner, no matter how childish or unreasonable. To be fair to Jane, she does not exploit this unofficial ruling at all. I, on the other had, use My Big Day as an opportunity to throw back a year’s worth of gripes in her face – making her fetch things unnecessarily from the fridge, wash me, dress me etc. All I am expected to do on her birthday is to be nice, thoughtful, and mediumly indulgent. Even this I can’t do.

It was all going so well until we got into London for dinner in the evening. Jane was excited because she had received lots of new clothes as presents, including a pair of new boots from me (chosen by her several months in advance). She loves them unreservedly, and had spent the day cooing and fussing over them, admiring them in every available reflective surface, and asking me if I thought they were nice. My answer was yes. Always yes.

But if there’s one thing I hate about myself, it is my impatience. And if anything is guaranteed to crack my brittle façade of gentility, and reveal the miserable, po-faced killjoy within, it is shopping / clothes, or shopping / clothes related chit-chat. On the escalator out of Waterloo Station, Jane asked me if I liked her new boots, for approximately the fourth time that day, and it was clearly too much for me. Releasing a long, laboured sigh, and in my most pompous Basil Fawlty voice, I said that yes…. I do still like them, or something equally testy and uncalled for.

I’m not proud. It temporarily soured the day, and it was my fault. I had neglected my responsibilities as non-birthday partner, and had besmirched the birthday code. I was a twat.

But there is something about shopping for clothes, especially in London, that turns me into a sour, Victor Meldrew-ish misery. And I know that I am not alone. Mine is a shared misery – one that can be seen, etched into the faces of the rows of disconsolate husbands and boyfriends, sat outside the changing rooms of TopShop and Warehouse with drooping shoulders and heavy hearts every Saturday afternoon. A misery, which can be heard in their cracked, resigned voices, as they wrack their brains for something original to say about the fourth pair of apparently identical black pony-skin mules upon which an opinion has been demanded within the last half hour.

For the likes of us, each shopping excursion is a series of exacting (some would say Herculean) tests. Will you be able to resist the urge to snap “For God’s sake, if you like it buy it, if you don’t, don’t!” when asked to come up with a list of scenarios in which the lady in your life might wear a particular garment? Will you be able to choke back the bitter tears of impotent rage as you are jostled one time too many by a large-bag wielding posh woman, in the knowledge that if you violently lash out, pawing at anyone within flailing distance, then you are the baddie?!

Why, when we go to TK Maxx, does Jane see in the endless rails of clothing a sea of opportunity and wonder, while I simply see…endless rails of clothing? And the potential for fist-fights?

As easy as it would make things, this is not a men vs. women issue. My hatred of shopping is a reflection of the unisex fact that I have very little clothes-sense. The concept of a particular shirt going with a particular pair of trousers is more or less alien to me. That’s a shirt, that’s a pair of trousers. What’s not to go? As long as the trousers stay up and the shirt doesn’t burst into flames, I’m happy.

I have a friend – a male friend – who once text-messaged me from Barcelona, to excitedly inform me that he had just picked up a great tie and a new pair of cuff links. While I was happy for him, I found it hard to muster any enthusiasm of my own. I am as likely to own a pair of cuff links in my lifetime as I am to own a pair of sunglasses that haven’t come free on the front of a magazine, i.e. not very. Why buy cuff-links when there are so many perfectly good shirts out there that come with buttons? Why wear sunglasses when you can squint? Makes no sense.

And yet, I still feel ashamed when I meet up with my friend, especially on occasions that demand any kind of formality. This is a man who has his suits hand-made by a well-respected Carnaby Street tailor; who has an array of accessories to accompany these suits that includes a pair of spats. Spats!

I own one suit. I bought it several years ago and now regard it as family. Not close family you understand – more the type of family whom you see only sporadically, on special occasions, and with whom contact is cordial but perfunctory. Like distant family, it’s not that I don’t want to see my suit, it’s just that it usually behoves something either stressful or unpleasant. Like a funeral.

I have no desire for any more suits. Having more than one strikes me as a reckless indulgence, like owning a racehorse, or a gold-plated stetson. I’ve no proof for this, but I strongly suspect that such great historical figures as Winston Churchill, Mahatma Ghandi and…. say…Kubla Khan, had no more than one suit.

What is to be done for the legions of the fashion-blind for whom shopping is less a pleasure, more a bewildering, Sisyphean ordeal? I fear that it’s too late in the day to instil a true sense of fashion in any of us over the age of 18. We poor folk are now walking exercises in damage limitation – all that can be done is for the people around us to take pity and try to prevent us from slipping into the sartorial dark night of the soul that is tracksuit bottoms. I’m no expert, but even I can tell that these are the most unflattering garments known to man. In the meantime, we should probably just stop fucking whinging and let Jane enjoy her birthday. Alright?!