Shopping

Last weekend, while I'm away at Cliveden with boyfriend T celebrating our one year anniversary, we start chatting about what's important to us in our lives.

"So how important am I to you?" I ask boyfriend T over dinner on the first night.

"Very important of course :-)," he replies without thinking, smiling at me.

"But how important am I relative to other things in your life, such as your work, your friends, your family etc?"

"I guess they're all important, but there's one equally important thing that you've missed out," he says, with a cheeky glint in his eye, "... Shopping!"

"What?" I reply in disbelief, "you mean that I'm only as important to you as a shopping trip??"

"I really really enjoy shopping!" he laughs, "so all I'm saying is that shopping is important to me as well :-). Don't you just LOVE going shopping?"

"Well it's OK," I answer, not sure how serious he's being, "although I usually get tired of it after a couple of hours or so."

Thinking back, I can remember having a similar conversation with ex-boyfriend P. He told me that he'd sometimes end up on marathon shopping trips with friends, lasting literally all day. On one occasion, he also told me that he thought that I was a bit of a lightweight when it comes to shopping, because I always end up getting bored!

"But do you enjoy all types of shopping," I ask, "including shopping for more mundane items such as toilet paper?"

"Sure," he replies, "it's still shopping :-)."

Actually, I do think that some types of shopping can be fun, for example when one visits all the top fashion stores and tries on new clothes :-). However, I definitely find shopping for every day items a real chore :-(. I've known quite a few gay guys who love shopping, so perhaps boyfriend T's attitude isn't that unusual for a gay man. Since he's still very closeted, though, it may be a problem for him. Some of his characteristics are very straight, but if he wants to hide his sexuality, this addiction to retail therapy is a real give-away!