Consumerism

I both loathe and love shopping. I don't particularly like spending money, especially when we have so little of it. That's why I make everything home, from the three meals a day, to the snacks that be enjoyed, even if not bought. I can veggies, fruits, make my own pickles, my own jams, and my own bread. Every little bit helps, tremendously.

I love buying small little things that changes the mood and look of the home. I also don't like buying things that aren't sturdy and don't make through at least two years, no matter how cheap they are. So I tend to stay away from extra cheap stuff, because they aren't made to last.

However, the way the stores are managed, designed and the ads and the catalogs all create a narrative consciousness we believe in. Or at least can be susceptible. It's easy to buy into this narrative, quite unconsciously. Ads begin the circle of this vicious routine and deep brainwashing. TV Series, movies, books, and eventually ending at the stores. We believe everyone shops a lot, everyone has all of these items and that over and over we are advertised things we don't need as necessities.

I fall into this trap and thankfully, because I just don't have the money, I always return back home empty handed, and it's my golden rule to wait until the third visit to actually buy something. So when that happens, it becomes apparent all those items, decorations, new gadgets and gismos and appliances are not necessary.

Engagement Rings

Now that we're semi-engaged and will become engaged on the twentieth of this month, we've been having a lot of discussions about obviously in general about relationships and marriages. However, we've also been having a lot of discussions about weddings and the upcoming announcement of our engagement at our engagement party. This kind of conversation eventually leads to details of what will be happening, how and when. Which gets mechanical quite quickly and thus averted our attention to rings. I particularly don't care, however in Turkish tradition it is customary for each side to give each other wedding bangs to be worn for the rest of your life (the only bands you get). A red ribbon will be tied to each ring, which will hold the two rings together, placed on a tray or a pillow, held proudly, by an unmarried, single, young woman. An elder male member of the family will make a speech and eventually cut the red ribbon with a pair of scissors after the rings are placed on both the bride and the groom to be's right ring fingers.

To be honest, I've never truly understood the desire to wear rings to somehow bring fort materialization of your commitment to one another. Alas, even I can't escape certain traditional aspects of the whole sanctioned mating rituals.

The question eventually makes itself obvious and S finally gathered enough courage to ask me "what about rings?". I naturally answered, "I never thought about it. I think we would have to have something symbolic in order to be engaged at the party as it is customary in the tradition. But other than that, I don't care. I don't think we need to buy anything to spend money on it." Well, things didn't go as I planned which ended on S being a little offended and being on the defensive side of the conversation. So, even more questions and conversation transpired and long story short, we've decided we would wear rings, but simple ones which would not cost our budget any dent. We declared the price of a hundred dollars to be enough. The idea we argued, was to show our commitment and a simple token of our love to one another, rather than to show we were engaged, or married.

This was all well and done. I thought we had simply solved the problem. The day to go to the mall and shop came. Things, unfortunately were not as we had guessed. It turns out that it is nearly impossible to find cheap engagement rings. People seem to put so much emphasis on the whole ring thing. I really don't understand why it needs to be so expensive? I also don't understand why people try to hard to sell things that have only materialistic price, but no inherent value. Granted, a ring, eventually, after decades of wearing can be very valuable to a woman/man. It can come to bring together two people, their memories and link their story to their descendants to come for many generations. But, a ring is not valuable, simply because it is a ring made out of a "precious metal and stone". My ass. Needless to say, we were kind of chased away or ignored by people at the jewelery store stands.

As a conclusion, we were disappointed that we could not get away with paying hundred dollars on our first try. I won't give up. Over my dead body that I'll buy something "nice and fashionable".