Mobile Phones: The Saviour of the Shopped Out Boyfriend

How many of us have stood kicking our heels in Miss Selfridges on a Saturday afternoon while the girlfriend looks at yet another pink thong or pair of boots? We have all been there. But now, thanks to technology, the phenomenon of the bored boyfriend is on the wane.
Now if you were to look around any high street retailer on a Saturday afternoon you will find the usual throng of women shoppers, but also men leaning on a clothing rack, mobile phone in hand. Whether he is sending a text message or just pretending to, he is no longer trying not to be embarrassed by the underwear section of Top Shop. With the advent of ever improving mobile phone technology, today’s man is more likely to be surfing the internet on his phone or downloading the latest hits than trying to look at other women without his girlfriend noticing.
This I feel is a shame, just another case of technology removing a part of what makes us who we are. Now that the text message allows us to avoid the awkward stance and sly glances at the underwear, where are we supposed to bond? Remember seeing the episode of Father Ted where the priests get lost in the underwear section? That applies not just to priests, but to every other man, that fear of being left alone, with all those pants, women looking at you like some kind of pervert! These days the male of the species could probably use his phone to find a map of the shop on the net to help him out.
I recall, when younger, being dragged along to the shops with a girlfriend, only to spend my afternoon, hands in pockets occasionally nodding and murmuring appreciative comments. I bonded with other boyfriends, wordlessly, just catching the look in the eyes of the other guy made us feel like part of the same club. The occasional nod, a raise of the eyebrows, and the over exaggerated grimace are all common features of the man in a clothes shop.
Without these shopping trips, how are we to learn to relate to women, or even to other men? Without the training ground of the shops, how are boys supposed to learn that the correct answer to all questions posed by women is that they look great? And, how else are today’s young men supposed to gain the influence needed to enable them to then spend an hour wandering the dvd section of HMV without first spending time being the dutiful boyfriend?
The mobile phone serves to both entertain us during the shopping trip but also to distance us from our women. It makes it look like shopping is not an effort, like our patience is not something to be rewarded.
So while the new generation of mobile phones means that this generation of young men don’t have to stand around bored, it also deprives them of the ability to entertain themselves, or even of having to think for too long.