I want to start this by dispelling a common myth. Men don’t shop. When we have a demand for an item we find the quickest route to get to the appropriate supplier. Shopping is the carnage that happens in between, and we don’t have the patience for that!
For anyone who has been unlucky enough to experience Oxford Street on a Saturday you will be well versed with the familiar cloakroom clusters and door lingerers that are the men of the shopping World. The poor souls who stand for hours on end waiting as their partners take the most indirect route possible to making a purchase, setting alight to any semblance of a relaxing weekend in the process.
According to a new study commissioned by Andrews Air Conditioning the average bloke will spend more than three weeks of their life waiting for their other half to shop. Three weeks! That amounts to 23 minutes of each shopping trip standing awkwardly outside a store or changing room, and with couples going shopping twice a month together, that’s almost 47 minutes a month or nine hours and 22 minutes a year hanging around!
So what is ‘shopping’ in the eyes of a bloke? Well, the survey finds that for half of us it means trailing in the wake of our partners as they dilly-dally through shopping isles. More than a third just get out of the way and stick their heads into the Sky Sports app as the results come in and others stand or sit at the entrance to the shop or phone or message friends. One in ten even slope off and get some food or drink – might as well be productive!
The reality is that for men, shopping isn’t an enjoyable pastime, and as much as we want to spend time with the other half at the weekend surely there’s a more appropriate vessel in which to do it? I’d say it’s time to fight back. So the next time you’re out and trailing through crowds of shoppers in the name of ‘quality couple time’, drop the bags and tweet #MenDontShop. They’ll soon get the message!