Ladies, hands up if you have ever taken your husband, boyfriend, brother, male friend shopping….everyone? Good. Now hands up who actually had fun/found what they wanted/leave early after arguing when they did that?….very few it seems.

Men and women shop differently, just like they read maps differently, get ready to go out differently, and do pretty much everything else differently.

I can happily go into EVERY shop in the centre

As previously mentioned, my other half  is actually a pretty good shopper, but the more we hit the shops together I realize he is actually a pretty good shopper when we are shopping for HIM! But after we start to hit the girl-only shops the foot starts tapping, the watch is looked at every five minutes and the ‘are you done yet?’ expressions start to appear. We do visit some stores that cater for both men and women but most of those stores tend to be stores that don’t work so well for me – see here. On the other hand, he will be able to walk in, try anything on and look good in it (he is blessed with a clothes horse-like build though). T-shirts are never a problem, jeans will slide on and do up without jumping up and down and he is ALWAYS THE SAME SIZE! It takes him a whole seven minutes to find everything he is looking for (and a few extra t-shirts) in the one shop. DONE!

On the other hand I have been known to walk up and down a whole shopping street in search of a specific item, only to go back to the first one in the first shop after three hours of looking and finding nothing better. It was exactly what I was looking for BUT I had to make sure there wasn’t anything else out there that may have been just that little bit MORE perfect – you know what I mean!?

Ready, set, SHOP!

Boys see shopping as a sport – get in (find the closest carpark to the door), get out (make a bee-line to the shop in question, ‘No we are not popping into Sportsgirl on the way through honey‘) and do it as fast as you can (I’ll have that shirt in all five colours thanks!). A one-stop shop where they can get everything from a $2000 suit to their socks and jocks? Even better!!

On the flip side, girls see shopping as a science – set a task (must find a knee length black a-line skirt because the other five I have in my wardrobe are not quiet right), plan the course of action (major shopping centre or boutique street shopping?), weigh up all the possibilities (try on EVERY black skirt in EVERY store, oh and that gorgeous pair of shoes in Nine West while I’m here) and then go back to the best option (normally the first one we tried on, once again with a detour via Napoleon to check out the new eye colours).

Do you see the difference? Now this is a bit of a generalisation on both sides, I know boys that can shop for hours and girls that freely admit they shop like boys but on the whole am I lying? So to stop the foot tapping, and the huffing and puffing, maybe its best to take a girlfriend, sister or mother shopping with you – or as I have discovered shop alone! You can go into the stores YOU want, take as long as you want to try things on and you don’t have to justify to anyone how much money you are spending on that amazing (but totally impractical) pair of heels.

But if you must take your man shopping my one piece of advice? Make sure he has his iPhone to keep himself entertained and make sure the stores you are headed to have really comfortable man-chairs outside the change rooms.

Is you other half a good shopper? And do you have any tricks for getting them to last longer (at the shops of course!)