It's not difficult at all. People rarely post their mundane transactions which make up the vast majority. They sometimes post about their good ones. A lot of bad ones get posted because people like to bitch to other people about things.

>beta as fuck general

>I've read stories about fabric store employees being rude to men

Not just men, in my experience, but to anyone under the age of 55. Fabric store workers are the grumpiest old women ever. They constantly speak to you as if you're an idiot buying the wrong amount of the wrong fabric, especially if you try to buy during prom season.

And other old women (as in, this has happened multiple times at different stores) who are customers have tried to snatch bolts of fabric out of my hands. What the fuck, you can have it when I'm done.

>>5534758
Actually, the optician thing doesn't have an online option. If you don't want to risk ruining your eyes, you need to get your eyes measured by an optometrist.

when I was a little scrap the old ladies at fabricland were really nice to me, teaching me stitches and fabrics, now they're tolerant, but overall happy that someone who is young likes to sew, and usually understand when I say its for something Ive calculated with maths or something fancy like that.

Be polite really.

Most fabric stores are aware of cosplayres, Fabric Depot in Portland is pretty fond of the Portland cosplayers and is happy when we drop by and ask us about cons and such, male or female. So I've never heard of any one here in my city have problems there.

Havent heard much for make up either. It's not like your the only person ever to come in asking for make up as a male, they'll more than likely assume your getting it for stage or something like that if your getting it for you. You only hear the bad stuff because honestly how many of us are going to post stories about the polite people we come across? It happens often enough, we just like to bitch about the uncommon bad shit.

>>5534758
>I've read stories about fabric store employees being rude to men
Must be shitty fabric stores. Both the local quilt store and both of the local JoAnn's have all been quite excellent to me.

As for opticians, mine was kinda wary of getting colored contacts, but I could tell it was much more of a being concerned for my safety against illegal crap being peddled online rather than, uh, something else.

>>5534796
>its for something Ive calculated with maths
Huh?

>Huh?
I think he means like "I worked out the sizes and proportions with maths and didn't pull it all out of my ass, so I know what I'm doing".

I work at a hardware store where we get cosplayers a fair bit, most of them don't fess up too what they are doing at first but normally you can tell they are there for cosplay supplies by the clothing that they are wearing (normally printed t-shirts with characters on and the like.) I work with a lot of nerds who know their stuff (both fan base and materials/techniques) so we welcome them pretty warmly, I don't know how the other workers handle it though since they are unfamiliar with most of it.

At the end of the day though most retailers are there to make a sale so they really shouldn't give a shit about what you are doing, so long as they give you good advice and general customer assistance.

Rarely have a problem shopping around town:
1.) Yes some fabric stores have rude quilters/fleecers who will bodycheck you or move you with their shopping cart to get a bolt of fabric but that's them, not the store. Obviously we know rude people are everywhere.

Unfortunately most of the employees at my Joanns don't have a whole lot of helpful hints beyond simply buy pattern, buy fabric, make thing with pattern but they are willing to radio each other and ask which is nice. They don't really care what I'm making so no awkward moments there.

Opticians in general are more interested in helping you keep your eyes safe and healthy. If they get all high-and-mighty about it then switch to a different one or buy all your shit in the fall when you can say it's for Halloween and they won't think anything of it. My optometrist is pretty bro and orders shit off the internets/from catalogs for me which eliminates that whole "call office to verify prescription" step. Your other option is to go and get fitted so you know what to buy in the right size, then shop around online while doing research.

As to dudes with makeup? Wtf, just go to a store with self-checkout. I live in a ultra conservative lily-white area and people just buy whatever they don't want a cashier handling by using the self-checkout lane. Or go through regular checkout and say it's for a girlfriend or whatever. They're there to take your money, it shouldn't matter what you're spending it on.