How to go to the store together and keep the relationship

Going with your girlfriend at IKEA? Learn these rules first.

If in the Middle Ages a man demonstrated to a girl the seriousness of his intentions by killing a dragon, nowadays everything is much more complicated: a man takes a girl to IKEA. A joint trip to IKEA is a sign that everything is serious and for a long time (at least until a jointly bought pillow in the shape of a heart becomes a victim of a furious moth).

How many happy bachelors fell victim to this hospitable Swedish shop! And if you called your friend on Saturday with a proposal to walk through the bars, and he answers in an unnaturally peppy voice that he is in IKEA, know that it is already impossible to save him. (And by the way, you can already brush off the dust from the output suit: after a couple of months you will be bored at the unfortunate wedding).

For some couples, a joint trip to IKEA has exactly the opposite effect. They break up. After all, a giant store full of goods of varying degrees of uselessness is a serious test for a combination of temperaments and budgets. Therefore, before you and your girlfriend hit the road to the country of free pencils, new towels and seductive meatballs, carefully study these rules. They will help you and the girl go through the IKEA initiation, and not part at the exit from the store.

MAKE A LIST
Yes, it is commonplace, but necessary. You don’t want to realize on the way back that you didn’t buy a sofa, but you became the owner of excellent curtains (and you don’t even have windows at home!). Therefore, be sure to agree with the girl for what you actually eat at IKEA. Make a list and, upon arrival, immediately rush to the department you need. You will wander aimlessly around the store after the main tasks are completed.

ASSIGN “NON-CONFLICT PRICE”
That is the one because of which you will not argue. For example, 1 dollar: everything that costs 1 dollar or less, and one of the partners liked it, is immediately sent to the shopping bag. So you save everyone a lot of nerves: you do not need to dissuade the girl from the garlic press for 25 cents. In turn, you don’t have to become the only listener of the lecture on the topic “You do not need the eighth geranium, you have not killed the previous seven.” Give each other freedom! (Within, I recall, 1 dollar).

PUT IN THE BUDGET UNEXPECTED EXPENDITURE
Even if by some miracle both of you belong to the ascetic type of people who, if you went behind the closet and then leave with the closet, put unforeseen expenses into your budget. In the case when the store finds out that the closet loses its functionality without a box for shoes and trifles. And this is an additional expense that you need to be prepared for.

CHOOSE A NON-POPULAR VISIT TIME
Thousands of couples breathing in your back are not the best decoration for a pleasant shopping experience. In addition to the cramped and inconvenient choice, you will be haunted by the feeling that the best products are about to be sold out, so you run the risk of acquiring what you really don’t need at all, just from a sense of evolutionary race. Try to come to IKEA at non-popular time – a morning on a working day or late evening (since most shops are open until night).

TAKE A TAXI
Even if you arrived at IKEA on foot, with one knapsack behind you, it makes sense to write down the cost of a taxi to your home in the table of expenses. There is nothing worse than trying to carry heavy boxes, slipping bags and bursting bags. And, by the way, the main burden will, of course, have to bear you. Because, even though feminism is walking through the country, you are still still a man.