Taken from Confessions of a Shopaholic,
"I shop. When I shop, the world just gets better."Exactly. I would never call myself a shopaholic because I don't have my entire closet packed to its brim with new purchases and risk having a debt collector stalking me. But if there is a term to describe me, it has just got to be this:
Problem ShopperDays ago some guy with a big board approached me, gave me a little brochure with questions like, "Do you find it difficult to stop once you start gambling?" and "Do you gamble down to the very last cent?" And in the brochure, it says that if my answer is
YES to all the questions, then I ought to seek professional help urgently. The guy further explained that most of us often see ourselves as 'social gamblers' but a proportion of us do not realize it when we become 'problem gamblers'. Of course, the guy was representing a group that seeks to help put a stop to problem gambling in our society before it spawns out to become a real big social problem.
Nip the problem in the bud, isn't it always what they say?
And I wonder, if there are social gamblers who gradually become problem gamblers as the thrill of gambling becomes an addiction, would shopping be the same as well?
Some people pull a piece or two off the shelves on a random day in a random shop with some random friends, and spend the entire day grinning at how they are now ten years younger. Some people pull out just a few pieces more because of that magical numbers strewn all over the store - numbers like
20, 30, 40 and even
50. Of course, the higher the number the greater the craze. Most people would be able to do what the Singapore government used to ask us to do -
stop at two or
three or more if we can afford. Most people would be able to stop without feeling any guilt and continue to live their lives like how they did the day before. This majority of the people I would say, fit perfectly into 'social shoppers'.
I am a different story.
Do I find it difficult to stop once I start buying?
YESDo I (often) find myself buying to the last dollar in my wallet?
YESThe thrill of holding something you paid for as you leave the shop is addictive. Once I've made my first purchase, the excitement turns full circle and becomes a drive and drives me right into another shop to buy more. It's like slipping down a slippery slope - you just can't help falling deeper and deeper into it. But what always happens to me is, as long as I am still in the shopping complex, I can't help buying more; but as soon as I am out of the building, the guilt sets in. The mental calculator will be on auto pilot, calculating the total casualty for the day.
And in less than one week, my bank account is SGD 77.80 less than what it should be. And this is entirely due to shopping. I have not even counted the proportion of money spent on other 'areas'.
The global credit crunch has now moved to my wallet.
