The dark side of window shopping

I have never bookmarked Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace in my web browser, but if I type certain letters into the search bar, the first things that populate are those two sites. Every time. I click, and begin the scroll—subconsciously, at this point. After a minute or two, my brain latches onto a listing: A Corvair missing its engine, or a Honda Goldwing that needs carb work, or another Honda XR250R—this one, with a good cylinder head.

Oxford Languages defines a habit as a “settled or regular tendency or practice, especially one that is hard to give up.” According to a study in 2009, a habit can develop in as little as 18 days. My thrice-daily scrolling of online marketplaces—when drinking my morning coffee, eating lunch, and “about to leave the office,” for maximum efficiency—was locked in. It was the equivalent of endless main-street walks, a gearhead’s version of window shopping.

Scrolling these listings sparks deep inside the brain’s “fear of missing out” cylinder. In my case, that cylinder is supercharged by Facebook Marketplace knowing my penchant for Corvairs and Honda XR motorcycles. The next killer deal on the perfect project is always waiting to be found, and the price will surely be lower than ever. If I’m not the first one to message the seller, it’ll surely sell before I can get to it, so I have to constantly be looking.

I am not the only one who sells myself this terrible and flawed logic.

Heck, window shopping is not even a recent phenomenon. It can be traced back to 17th-century Europe, when the emerging middle class first had time to look at the luxury goods of the bourgeoisie in the windows of shops. Occasionally, they were able to buy the goods, but mainly, window shopping was a chance to pretend that they were part of another lifestyle. 

Now, anyone can window shop at any time. Thanks, internet. Its proliferation doesn’t mean window shopping is bad, but if we are not careful, we get carried away with could be and neglect what is.

My addiction started with the slightly-bent white wire rack that held Deals on Wheels, stationed in the little breezeway of Stacy’s Restaurant right off exit 299 on I-70 near my hometown of Milford, Kansas. That little stapled-spine book of classified opened my mind to all the interesting cars I could own if I was prepared to do the work no one else wanted to.

During the years leading up to my getting my driver’s license, if I was lucky, my dad I would go to Sunday lunch at Stacy’s. Dad would flip through the pages of classifieds, and we would talk about whatever interesting stuff appeared. Based solely on grainy photos and pay-by-the-letter descriptions, we would mull over whether the subject of a given ad was something to buy or not. We never had the intention of putting money down, but we loved talking about what each dilapidated hulk would need, and if that would be a difficult project, and if the investment would make sense in the end.

“Did you see that Honda MB5 for sale over in Leland?”

“Yeah, but you know it’s got problems that aren’t listed, because that bike looks awful crunchy for a description that just says ‘runs good, could use a tuneup, missing a few bits.’ We aren’t even in the same ballpark price-wise, so I’m not even calling.”

“Of course, but that could be a fun little get-around-town bike. Way cooler than a scooter, and not nearly as annoying as taking the big bike out.”

“You’re right. Repaint a few things and recover the seat. Get an expansion chamber and tune it in. Would be a really cool project.”

“For sure. Wouldn’t take long either.”

“Maybe it is worth calling.”

This eventually blossomed into my well-documented tendency to become enamored with the potential of a project.

(For the record, if I have ever bought something from you, credit my friends, not the ad you wrote or the pictures you posted, for my happily overpaying you. You aren’t a great salesmen. My friends are, and what they sell me is not your car, but the adventure.)

Seeing a forlorn and rotting vehicle in the ad is only the start. The hours of research, wrenching, and tuning—that’s the intoxicating part. I see a 1991 Honda XR250R that “just needs carb work,” and I think about how awesome it would be to transfer a lot of the parts currently on my 1986 XR250R over to that model; it has a disc brake rear, yet my nicely built motor would bolt right in. Nothing looks worse than dark and grainy photos, either, so every listing holds near infinite-possibility. Just think of what that could look like after I rework or replace 90 percent of it!

It’s not just some motorcycle or engine I am hankering to buy. I’m addicted to potential. And that’s where the fear of missing out comes back in.

Marketing firms spend hundreds if not thousands of hours developing algorithms to leverage this fear. For a lot of us, that fear centers on missing a deal—the perfect project car, one city over, for an insanely low price. But, unless you are stacking a decent amount of cash on hand and a lot of storage space, you are likely window-shopping like the rest of us.

Having to pass on a great deal because I don’t have the $500 or the space still hurts. Maybe it stings because, at the end of the day, I want to stop dreaming and actually get on with doing stuff.

In that vein, I decided to stop wasting time.

I cut out the classifieds. The first week without scrolling online listings was rough, but then I figured out better ways to use that time, ways that allowed for daydreaming but didn’t leave me with the feeling that I don’t have what it takes to do the things I want to do. Mainly, I turned to machining forums and videos. No, I don’t own a lathe or Bridgeport or any other machine tools. Heck, I’ve probably got more time invested in troubleshooting idle air-control issues on my last pickup than in running a lathe. Still, it’s fun to learn and to think about. Materials science is also super cool.

You never find what you aren’t looking for, but when the hunt for the perfect deal makes you blind to the projects and plans you have, it’s time to stop scrolling. I’m lucky enough to have a couple really fun projects right now that deserve some positive attention—most of which requires little spending. Certainly less than bringing another project into the garage would. Given my personal desires to trim in some hobby-related spending this year, I am proud to say I have not visited any classifieds ads in search of projects for three weeks. Not a long time, but a start.

Now I am stuck with something even more confusing:

How did I just buy another motorcycle if I haven’t looked at Marketplace or Craigslist for weeks?

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