Farcades

The Farcade (short for "Female-induced-need-for-an-arcade") is an entertainment area for men to place themselves in when their girlfriend drags them into an embarrasing store to shop in. They would be located inside the store itself, in an unobtrusive corner. I would suggest pinball machines (my personal favorite), fighting games, or racing games, but really, anything will do in a pinch. Even Pacman (Note: NOT Ms. Pacman) or asteroids. Its not like they even need change machines; they already have registers. It could even be something as simple as handing out a gameboy to the gentlemen who ask. (For those of you thinking "wouldn't those be easy to steal?", they could be equipped with the same sort of theft deterrent alarms that the clothing is. Not to mention that nowadays, a gameboy can actually be less expensive than some of the clothing in the store.)

If you're wondering why there's a need for this, then you must be a girl. But I'll explain what guys go through when shopping in a store like "Express", "Wet Seal", and especially "Victoria's Secret". We walk in with our girlfriend, who immediately starts looking at clothes. We don't want to just follow her around looking over her shoulder, so we might start to wander and look around. Then we feel really really weird, walking around in a girl's clothing store by ourselves. So we seek out our girlfriend again. We'll ask "find anything?" in a hopeful tone of voice. But we don't want to hover. So we wander around again, and the cycle continues until the girl decides to either leave or try clothes on.

When she's trying clothes on, the guy's gotta wander around aimlessly, by himself. If it happens to be Victoria's Secret, you have to remind yourself over and over again "I am NOT a pervert, I am NOT a pervert, I am NOT..." You can't hang around the dressing room, where your girlfriend is, because you look like a pervert. You can't walk around and look at the clothes, because you'll look like a pervert. Occasionally, you might make eye contact with another guy taking the same walk as you...but you both quickly divert your eyes, because it's a walk of shame. It's exponentially worse when you have to hold something like a purse or an article of clothing while you're doing this, too.

If there was just some kind of entertainment for the gentlemen that are dragged into these stores all day, it would make life for everyone a lot easier. The guys have somewhere to go, something to do with their hands, and can even interact with other guys in the same boat! The girlfriends are happy, because their boyfriends will quit complaining about being dragged into these stores. And the other female customers in the store will be happy, because there aren't men wandering aimlessly around while they're trying to pick out a sports bra.

Just a thought.