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I've been watching Say Yes to the Dress, a reality show about a bridal dress shop,* and an interesting pattern has emerged. The shop, Kleinfelds, does not let you just try on dresses. You have to make an appointment with a consultant and they will listen to what you want and choose dresses for you (although if you've done research ahead of time, they will pull specific dresses you've picked). Given that people fly in from other countries for the sole purpose of buying a dress, there is clearly a market for this sort of thing and they clearly do it very well, but it creates some interesting side effects, which I think are directly analogous to certain dating failure states.
First, there are the women that go in with no intention of buying a dress, because they want the Kleinfeld Experience. The consultants rightly get annoyed by this, because it wastes their time and costs them a potential commission.** I see this as pretty analogous to people leading other people on- for attention, for free drinks, for sex (when the other person has made it clear they don't want sex without romance), etc. It is wrong to do that.
But some of the consultants use this to justify anger at any bride who doesn't come in committed to buying. They'll accept a no-buy if it stems from their inability to find a dress, or if they let the bride fall in love with a dress she couldn't afford, but not if it stems from a bride who was trying to gather information on how much dress you got for a given amount of money, or wants to try several different stores, or simply needs to think for an hour before dropping $6000 on a dress. All of those reasons get lumped in with "wanted to play dress up with her friends" and make her a bitch.
This very heavily reminds me of a text I got after a failed date. The date itself wasn't terrible, we just didn't click. Two days later, he texted me to ask "What happened? Did I do something wrong?" Which isn't awful but did annoy me, because of the implication that us not making out was an aberration from the natural order of things that needed an explanation. There are a wide range of outcomes in which neither of us did anything wrong but we are not making out.
I wish the Kleinfeld's consultants grasped that it was possible for them to do everything right, the bride to be a good person, and a sale not to be made. Not to mention the fact that the bridal-industrial complex in general and Kleinfeld's in particular has set things up such that there's no way for a woman to gather information without wasting someone's time. Selling the consulting service separate from the dress would let put everything on more open footing.
*shut up
**Although I'd point out that these appointments up the total number of consultants needed, and I believe they get a salary as well, so it's not a total loss.
First, there are the women that go in with no intention of buying a dress, because they want the Kleinfeld Experience. The consultants rightly get annoyed by this, because it wastes their time and costs them a potential commission.** I see this as pretty analogous to people leading other people on- for attention, for free drinks, for sex (when the other person has made it clear they don't want sex without romance), etc. It is wrong to do that.
But some of the consultants use this to justify anger at any bride who doesn't come in committed to buying. They'll accept a no-buy if it stems from their inability to find a dress, or if they let the bride fall in love with a dress she couldn't afford, but not if it stems from a bride who was trying to gather information on how much dress you got for a given amount of money, or wants to try several different stores, or simply needs to think for an hour before dropping $6000 on a dress. All of those reasons get lumped in with "wanted to play dress up with her friends" and make her a bitch.
This very heavily reminds me of a text I got after a failed date. The date itself wasn't terrible, we just didn't click. Two days later, he texted me to ask "What happened? Did I do something wrong?" Which isn't awful but did annoy me, because of the implication that us not making out was an aberration from the natural order of things that needed an explanation. There are a wide range of outcomes in which neither of us did anything wrong but we are not making out.
I wish the Kleinfeld's consultants grasped that it was possible for them to do everything right, the bride to be a good person, and a sale not to be made. Not to mention the fact that the bridal-industrial complex in general and Kleinfeld's in particular has set things up such that there's no way for a woman to gather information without wasting someone's time. Selling the consulting service separate from the dress would let put everything on more open footing.
*shut up
**Although I'd point out that these appointments up the total number of consultants needed, and I believe they get a salary as well, so it's not a total loss.
