Getting lost inside department stores...

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I never got lost in a department store - I don't think I ever have to be brutally honest, though I guess there's such a thing as repressed memory. If anything, when I was younger, I was brighter, and less scared of the world, possibly because the environment was more conducive to that sort of behaviour. If anything, my parents exclaimed to friends, "Oh, he got lost in the department store again!", when in fact I had just been quite determined to explore the place in my own way. Later on in life, maps & directions have still not been a problem to me.

Department stores try on purpose to make it easy to get lost. It's part of their marketing game. They think if you can not get out easy you will spend more money silly market-doids. Next time you go to one look around the exits are semi-hidden so do not feel too bad about it.

I don't understand how you guys can get lost. You park your car and you remember which entrance or store you came in at the mall and you rememebr what level you came in on and what stores are near there. In department stores, thereis only one entrance and its always in front of the store, all you have to do it walk along the side of the walls and you find the exit/entrance. I just remember what direction the doors are.

Used to have that problem of getting lost in places like department stores and the mall when I was very young (up to 6 or 7), but one of my intense interests is random map reading. I could stare at a map for hours! So I developed a very good sense of direction and geography in general. If I arrive at a new city, for example when I am traveling, and cannot tell which way is north or south, I get EXTREMELY disoriented and frustrated.

However, I'm still well known for forgetting where I parked the car, once I get out of the mall. Then I end up walking up and down a few of the rows of cars, looking for the car.

I find north and south useful for direction finding. The way I always use to find my direction in Christian-majority countries is by looking for the nearest church. 99% of them run fairly close to the east west axis, and after that, north and south are easy. Face the altar, or the end of the church that doesnt have an entrance, and turn 90 degrees left - you hsould be pretty close to north.

someone once remarked that i needed a compass with the word 'home' on it, my sense of direction being -that- bad.

I can get lost easily, but I use a trick to remember the way. I read once about honeybees giving one another directions to nectar. It's simply using things that are memorable as landmarks. When I go through a store I haven't been in before, I note something every time I change direction. It's Ok, I came in by the Men's watch display, took a left at Ladie's bikinis, past the cute girls at the make-up counters, through the headless mannikins wearing sweaters. I do this so often I once asked a friend over to my house, and had to give him directions in this manner!! I literally didn't know the names of the streets I drive on every day!

By the way, I get dizzy in Department Stores, and HATE shopping for clothes. I couldn't figure it out until my wife told me that clothing frequently is doused with formaldyhide, which I'm allergic to.

Ok, now the navigating by landmarks I totally get.
Unless I'm driving, I tend to not notice the street name signs.
"ok, to get to my house, go to the end of your street, take a left... go til you see the green house with the red '02 Dodge Ram pickup in the driveway, and take a left at that intersection..."

yes, landmarks are useful. that's the only way i get anywhere. and maps.

but malls - the lights, the sounds, the smells get to me and i often get nauseated, dizzy and thrown off my track. i can find my way if i really need to but it tires me out greatly and i get physically ill for the days after.

libraries calm me though.

Yes there is just too much going on in depratment stores, they have extremely bright lighting to exhibit all their products (especially in the beauty departments), there is usually strong perfume in the air, its very dry and hot, loads of people, loads of things, escalators its a dizzying maze, where am I? And no matter how many times you go, you get lost.

Well I seem to spend half my life in Sainsbury's, but nevertheless I get lost. Not direction-wise, but remembering where things are. It's so big! Sainsbury's is not classed as a department store, but the larger stores effectively are.

I rarely get lost, thankfully; I actually have a very good sense of direction. My main problem is rembering where I parked the car!