It had been clear for the last half year or so that it was time to buy a new TV for a while, but I'd been putting it off. Which is a little strange: I'm in general not actively adverse to electronics shopping?

I finally got around to doing a bit of research online and talking to friends, and noticed that I was enjoying the process. As I spent more time poking around Amazon, I realized: I actually wasn't averse to shopping for a new TV (and receiver) at all, my brain had just assumed that part of that shopping would involve going to a physical electronics store, and I apparently really didn't want to do that! So I thought about that for a bit, decided that I wasn't being irresponsible by not looking at TVs in person, and a day later everything was happily ordered from Amazon. (Incidentally, it turns out that, even with Amazon Prime, TV delivery still takes a week, so don't expect to get it quickly if you follow the same route.)

At first I assumed this reflected my dislike of shopping in stores. But the truth is that I actually like shopping in some kinds of stores just fine: I really like bookstores, I enjoy doing the grocery shopping every week. And I would expect electronics to be something I'd be okay with shopping for, too. I think that what's going on is that my mental model of a store where I would buy a TV is Best Buy; and I don't like the sales staff there, don't trust them to give me advice that has more to do with my needs than their financial incentives, and don't trust them to have configured their display models in ways that reflect how they'll actually look in my environment. So, when my subconscious puts all of that together, it can think of lots of other things it would rather be doing; and I'm certainly not going to say my subconscious is wrong in that judgment.