I've experienced the "generation gap" as the old one...

...and I don't think I like it. Maybe I should rewind and explain. Like most women and gay men on earth, I really enjoy shopping, it resides at the top of my list of things that I love, right along with food, fine wine, and the smell of fresh clean sheets. My husband, on the other hand, would rather sit on hot coals while watching a Twilight marathon than have to peruse the mall and, God forbid, actually try on clothes. So, last week when he told me that we needed to go to the mall because he really needed new jeans, my inner fashion diva did a cartwheel and a quick little cheer – I had a reason to go shopping and it wasn't even my idea! Here's the thing, in order to keep the hubby from giving up on shopping like an addict gives up on sobriety, I had to stay focused - constantly remind him that lack of success in one store doesn't mean that he won't find a good pair of jeans, it just meant that we had to press on with our search. Shopping isn't a sprint, it's a marathon.

Shopping with a man means going into stores that you usually wouldn't browse on your own, which also means noticing trends that you normally ignore, but after spending a considerable amount of time in stores where the majority of the sales associates are males between the ages of, oh, say 16-24, I began to realize that either I'm way off on what is stylish, or I'm just getting old, and I'm pretty sure that the second explanation is the more plausible one.

This revelation first came to me when stepping into the dreaded Abercrombie & Fitch - a store that I usually avoid like the plague because it annoys me just to walk past it, so I've always assumed that actually entering the place would be as enjoyable as jumping off of a bridge, but after repeated attempts to find a decent pair of jeans with no success, we were getting desperate - and desperate times call for desperate measures. After immediately realizing that the combination of extremely loud, awful music and potent musky cologne would indeed make this place the least enjoyable store in which I've ever shopped, we headed for men's jeans, where we were met by an 18ish year old guy wearing a shirt that he must have swiped from his 10 year-old brother's closet and pants that he could only have borrowed from his girlfriend. His hair was clearly inspired by DJ Pauly D (that's the Jersey Shore guy, right?) After warding him off,  saying we were just browsing, the hubby grabbed a few pairs of jeans and headed to the fitting room, where we were met by another employee who clearly thought of Justin Bieber as his style idol. After a few minutes in the fitting room, the hubby came out rolling his eyes, muttering something about "damn TAPS" (to those of you who don't share the hubby's lingo, that would be "tight ass pants") and we moved on. A quick peak in Hollister told us that it was  clearly just Abercrombie & Fitch's evil plan to dominate the mall by creating identical stores under another name, so we skipped that fiasco.


I think this is what they were aspiring to...my hopes for the future generation were just flushed down the toilet.

The next few stops on the mission highlighted a whole other gag-inducing style which I can only assume is referred to as "emo." You know the look - dark greasy hair brushed into the eyes, guy liner, trying their best to look depressed even though they have everything they could ever want, they just think it makes them look cool. I prefer to call this "pop gothic." And I blame the whole situation on Pete Wentz.



Sorry, you get no street cred for trying too hard...just sayin'!

 Eventually, we did find jeans for the hubby, at Express Men – why we didn't go here first, I'll never know, but I all I could think as the day went on is how do young girls find these looks attractive? I don't think that I'm so old that I'm out of touch with reality, but if I were 15 again and this was the pool that I had to choose from, I think I'd either remain boyfriend-less or consider switching to the other team. I'm kind of glad that I don't have children yet, especially ones that are tweens or teens, because I'd like to believe that I'd be an open-minded parent who lets my children make their own decisions, but if I had a son that dressed like that, I'd have to tell him to man up, shave his head and force him to wear khakis and polos for a month just to prove a point. I swear, I think I actually prefer the "baggy jeans with the underwear hanging out" look to the "Justin Bieber meets Marilyn Manson" look.

So, to conclude, either the younger generation needs to get another style icon and quick, or I just need to accept the fact that I'm officially in the "older generation" and realize that I may never again find the trends of those younger than me to be cute or fashionable. But, the day that I start complaining about those "damn youngsters," someone please slap me. Thank you!