The Fitting Room Game

There seems to be a universal rule of thumb to never read too much into what you see in a fitting room mirror when trying something on. Most fitting rooms have awkward mirrors and poor lighting that highlight all your imperfections and insecurities. Try adding 30+kgs into that fitting room mirror and you've got yourself the most depressing 'retail therapy' ever. I couldn't tell you the amount of times I've needed a break and decided a little shopping spree would be just what I needed to clear my head, and ended up leaving feeling worse then I did when I got there. As a girl who weighs far more then she would like to admit, finding cute clothes in a trendy store that fit and flatter my body type is hard enough, but what I've recently discovered on my latest hunt for new clothes is far more upsetting then all those hours wasted shifting through racks with a glimmer of hope that I'll spot the odd XL size tag amongst the sea of small.

By now I'm used to that pit-in-stomach feeling when you've finally gathered a decent armful of clothing in your size range only to reach the fitting room's unable to pull any of them over your McChicken Chest, but lately I've noticed getting into the fitting rooms have proved to be the 'will it fit?' struggle before the clothes even leave their hangers! Now, I'm definitely not saying this about every store - a lot of cute stores these days do cater to the larger girls with sizes up to 18 and big fitting rooms with curtain doors, but some are just borderline size-discriminative.
One of my biggest pet-peeves when shopping for clothing is reaching the fitting rooms to find all the doors locked, and having to wave down the sales girl - who is generally busy serving customers at the register - to come and open a door for you. I understand a lot of stores use this technique to prevent theft, and the particular one I'm thinking of probably needs this more then others as they seem to be a target for rebellious teenage girls, but when the sales girl finally notices you need the fitting rooms unlocked, not only do you then have to endure the judgement as she scans over what you've chosen, no doubt thinking 'hah there's no way that's going to work for you' (this is probably just my anxiety after years of bad fitting room experiences) but once the room is unlocked and ready for the sizing games to begin, first you have to actually get into the fitting room! If you're a store that only sells sizes 6-8 and nothing higher then ok, have fitting rooms as small as the tiny people that will be using them, but if you sell clothing upwards of XL how do you expect a girl who will be buying these clothes to try them on when they can hardly get through the fitting room door?

I spend most of my time shopping online now because sometimes my shopping centre nightmares just leave me in such an awful mood and feeling so terrible about myself that new things just aren't worth the pain to get them.