IMAGEwrites: Send help, I may have developed a lockdown-induced online shopping addiction

In the event of a global lockdown, having never had any previous online-shopping impulse issues, Eoin Higgins has been battling the demons of eCommerce

Record players, vintages cars, Y2K indifference … I’m an analogue kind of guy. I like going to a shop and walking around. Having a browse. To me, it’s as satisfying as actually buying things. I’m not a shopaholic, by any means.

Having never been someone who really cares that much for Shopping (capital “s”), particularly its online variant, I recently totted up what I have bought online since The Great Global Lockdown (Do Not, Under Any Circumstances, Touch Anyone or Go Outside) Invisible Pestilence Event began.

So far, I have bought 100 vinyl gloves; four respiratory face masks; a kilo of Cloud Picker coffee; one handmade, bespoke oak table top; one modular galvanised steel desk kit; an iPhone 8; an Oliver Spencer T-shirt; a Bose Soundlink Bluetooth speaker; a bottle of Bulleit bourbon; one jar of Luxardo maraschino cherries; a Trek hybrid bike; a pair of Oliver Spencer Coventry nubuck shoes, in brown; one pair of A Kind of Guise Acapulco sunglasses (olive green lenses); an Urban Apothecary smoked leather scented candle (How could I resist when its “delicate scents of antique smoked leather, soft suede and saffron combine to evoke the feeling of settling in to a beautifully aged Chesterfield armchair”? Reader, I simply couldn’t refrain); one Agent Nateur natural deodorant; a David Attenborough Night at The Natural History Museum 1,000 pc. jigsaw puzzle, and 24 Zinc Yellow Single Pozi Countersunk wood screws.

I think I may have a problem.

Hello, my name is Eoin Higgins and I think I’m an online shopaholic.

While everyone else is fretting about the amount of booze they’ve been consuming, I’ve been consumed with frantically checking my bank balance while battling the demons of eCommerce, and it feels like a losing battle.

Whenever I close my eyes these days I see the PayPal logo – I think it’s been burnt into my retinas. At night, I dream of empty baskets, seducing me … daring me to fill them up with my hot digital currency.

It’s not my fault. When every outside commercial interaction is fraught with anxiety, shopping online seems to be a no-brainer solution to the great big nothing-to-do. It’s just that it costs a lot, and I’m not exactly rolling in currency currently, nor will I be – if the economic scaremongers are anything to go by – for a good while.

I have tried to justify it. “I’m keeping the economy afloat”, or “I’m not spending my money anywhere else”, or “I’ve bought nothing off Amazon”, or, my most beloved of excuses: “I deserve it”.

At this point I think I need to just step away from the laptop, cancel my PayPal account, delete all saved passwords and credit card details, cut off my fingers, blind myself … or just empty the bloody basket and stop spending money as a means to stave off boredom, like a responsible adult.

I should just crack open that bottle of bourbon, settle into my Chesterfield armchair and relax … actually, I don’t own a Chesterfield armchair, it’s just the enchanting aroma wafting from that Urban Apothecary Smoked Leather scented candle making me think I do. Maybe I could order one online though … just one last purchase … surely I deserve it.

Read More: In the middle of lockdown, I quit all social media (even Instagram)

Read More: Eoin Higgins asks ‘Am I the only one finding video calls mortifying?’