Retail therapy is that glorious, sparkly moment when you walk into a store, pick up something shiny, soft, or unnecessary, and convince yourself that this will solve everything. Your broken heart? Fixed by a new hoodie. Your CGPA? Definitely will be going up now that you have those aesthetic lipsticks. Existential crisis? One spray of luxury perfume at a shopping mall and suddenly you are reborn.

It gives a soft, sweet illusion that life is in control, because you are the one choosing. Choosing the colour, the size, the brand, the fantasy. You are not just buying things. You are buying emotions. A sense of worth, a smidge of control, and the very delicious lie that money can buy happiness.

And guess what? Science actually agrees. Studies have for sure proven that shopping activates the brain’s reward system; dopamine gets released, and your mood gets a little glow-up. Psychologists, I think, call it a “coping mechanism.” Influencers call it “a well-deserved self-treat.” Your brain calls it “finally, a reason to be excited.”

But we, the Bangladeshi student population, call it “Bhai, taka nai.”

Why can’t we just shop our stress away like everyone else?

Because unlike the rest of the world, we are trapped in the most dangerous demographic combo: student and Bangladeshi.

Our tuition fees are absurd. Private universities are charging like they are handing out degrees from Hogwarts. Part-time jobs? Either they do not exist, or they demand full-time hours for half a packet of biscuits and experience.

Even if you land a tuition somehow, you are making Tk1500 a month, and that is after begging a Class 7 student to please stop watching Tiktok videos and focus on algebra.

So no, we do not have the luxury of strolling into a store and saying, “I want this.”
We do stroll in but only to touch the fabric, sigh deeply, and walk away like heartbroken lovers separated by cruel fate and a Tk3999 price tag.

But it is fine. We are fine. Everything is fine.

Retail therapy is for people with disposable income. We have disposable feelings.

And so, we adapt. We adjust accordingly. We romanticise the act of adding to cart with no intention of checking out. We take mirror selfies in trial rooms and leave without shopping bags. We touch expensive things very gently, like they are made of dreams and disappointment.

One day, we tell ourselves. One day we will walk into a shop, pick up something without flipping the price tag first, and say, “Wrap it up.”

Until then, we’ll window shop with pride, sip our Tk10 cha with grace, and remind ourselves that while we may be broke, at least our sense of humour is rich. As Coco Chanel said, “The best things in life are free. The second best are very expensive.