shopping en femme

Next to dining out en femme, my next favorite thing to do is to shop en femme.

Shopping en femme is actually more "exciting" then dining en femme.

When you dine en femme, once you are seated in the restaurant, you blend into the background and are ignored by the other diners most of the time.

When you shop en femme, you are much more visible than when you are seated in a restaurant. You are visible most of the time you are in a store. If you are tall, you are even more visible while you browse in a store. You can't sit down like you can in a restaurant to disguise your height. You are out there for all to see.

If you are shopping in a mall, you are also visible as you move from store to store... even more so than when you are in a store. In a store, only the other shoppers and workers in the store can see you and they may not care or notice because they are concentrating on shopping and working. Whereas in the byways of a mall, you encounter shoppers and non-shoppers like senior citizens and teenagers killing time by people-watching.

Personally, I have found that female senior citizens are more troublesome than teenagers. On more than one occasion, I have encountered female senior citizens that were just plain rude when they figured out I was a male en femme. On the other hand, the teenagers were cooler than their senior counterparts. That is my experience; your mileage may vary.

Below is a list of stores where I have recently shopped en femme without any issues, i.e., the store staff treated me like any other customer and did not seem to mind that I was en femme.

In some cases, the staff made a special effort to treat me nicely. Asterisks (***) follow those stores that made an extra effort.

Connecticut

Ann Taylor Loft, 500 Westfarms Mall, Farmington
Fashion Bug, Queens Plaza, 861 Queen St., Southington
JCPenney, Westfield Shoppingtown, 470 Lewis Ave, Meriden ***
L'Oreal Paris, 500 Westfarms Mall, Farmington ***
M·A·C, 500 Westfarms Mall, Farmington
M·A·C (Macy's), Westfield Shoppingtown, 470 Lewis Av., Meriden
Macy's, 500 Westfarms Mall, Farmington
Nordstrom, 500 Westfarms Mall, Farmington
Payless Shoesource, Queens Plaza, 837 Queen St., Southington
Sephora, 500 Westfarms Mall, Farmington ***
Talbots, 500 Westfarms Mall, Farmington ***
Tonkin's Wigs, 481 Wolcott St., Waterbury ***
Torrid, Westfield Shoppingtown, 470 Lewis Ave, Meriden ***