She Asked Me Why I Didn't Just Buy It, and I Said I Wanted to Understand Collagen Recommendations First

When Yating set the thermos on my desk, steam was still curling off it. She said her boyfriend had spent a whole afternoon shopping with her last weekend, and they ended up arguing in the car—all because she stood in front of the shelf scrolling on her phone for twenty minutes and wouldn't put anything in the basket.

"He asked me what I was hesitating about, and I couldn't explain it." Yating pulled her hands into her sleeves, her fingertips as cold as a metal spoon just out of the fridge. "He said it's just a tub of powder, how hard can it be."

I understood that inability to explain. It's not that she didn't want to buy it—it's that she didn't know what she'd tell herself to justify it afterward. Her boyfriend's logic was: if you want to take care of your skin, buy it; if you want to stay warm, wear more clothes—two separate things. Yating's logic was: if I can't even explain what I'm putting in my body, spending the money will only make me more anxious.

That night she messaged me a screenshot of a row of search results, each one stated with absolute certainty. She said she'd typed in collagen recommendations, but what popped up felt like a competition over whose adjectives were more over the top. One said your skin would glow after taking it, another said girls with cold hands and feet absolutely needed to supplement, and one headline claimed it caused cancer—but clicking through led to a completely different story. She asked me: whose questions are these actually answering?

I didn't give her an answer. I only asked her one thing: is what you want to solve the cold hands, or is it wanting to feel like you're taking care of yourself? She was quiet for a long time, then replied, "Both."

The next day we met at a small coffee shop by the MRT station. She brought a notebook and divided what she wanted into three columns: one for staying warm, one for diet, and one she called "the pile of uncertainties." Under warmth she wrote socks, gloves, soaking her feet in hot water before bed; under diet she wrote eating breakfast, cutting back on cold drinks, not having just cookies for dinner. The third column was empty—she said she didn't know what to put there.

I told her the third column wasn't for products, it was for questions. For example: can she understand the ingredient list, does the packaging clearly state where it comes from, can she take this list to a pharmacist and ask. When she heard "ask a pharmacist," she paused and said she thought pharmacies only sold medicine. I said pharmacists deal with these bottles and jars every day—there's no shame in asking, and only by asking do you find out what you were actually hung up on.

Her boyfriend showed up later and sat beside us listening. His original attitude was "just buy it already," but halfway through he suddenly cut in, saying he wasn't actually annoyed that she was slow—he was afraid she'd regret it after buying and then lie awake all night. Yating looked at him and said she wasn't trying to buy the most expensive one, or the one most people talked about. She just didn't want to hand over her money without understanding anything.

That conversation had no conclusion, but the mood loosened. The boyfriend later went with her to a pharmacy, and the two of them stood in front of the shelf flipping packages over—one reading the ingredients aloud, the other looking up what those words meant on a phone. They didn't buy anything on the spot, just wrote down a few candidate names to think about at home.

A few days later, Yating sent me a photo of her notebook. The third column finally had something written in it—not a product name, but a question: Does what I eat match the life I want? She said she still gets cold, still wants to take care of her skin, but now she knows these two things don't need to be solved by the same tub of powder.

I asked her what her boyfriend said afterward. She said he only said one thing: "Take your time, I'll look with you." She said that sentence put her more at ease than any copy advertising instant results.

I thought about it later—searching itself isn't wrong. What's wrong is that we often treat searching as the finish line. The truly useful order is: first figure out what your needs actually look like, then see what others say, and finally take the uncertain parts to a professional. If your hands are cold, wear another layer; if your diet is a mess, fix your routine first. As for all those dazzling options, leave them to the people willing to spend time reading the labels.

Yating still scrolls on her phone, but she scrolls differently now. She stops to read the ingredient list, circles words she doesn't understand, and casually asks about them at her next checkup or when she passes a pharmacy. She says she hasn't become much more knowledgeable—she's just less afraid of admitting what she doesn't know.

That winter she didn't become someone who isn't afraid of the cold, and her skin didn't suddenly become someone else's. But between her and her boyfriend, there was less of that tension of "why can't you just be decisive" and more of a rhythm of "let's figure this out together." Sometimes the warmth in a relationship starts with being willing to stand there with the other person for five more minutes.