There are men who enjoy shopping. Really.

It has always been said that men do not like to shop. Be it for us, or our friends, or our spouses, or anyone else for that matter. The excuse is that there are better things to be done than shopping. Often times, we feign interest in shopping when we are courting our partner but soon after marriage, it becomes that dreaded thing we dont want to do. Our opinions are usually black and white. We are unsophisticated and dont quite understand much about the things our better halves buy.I am an anomaly. I love shopping. I can do an entire day at the mall and not complain. My wife considers me a rare specimen as do many of our friends and relatives. Often times, she is bored mid way through a marathon session at the outlet mall while I am only getting started. This begs the question- is it wrong for a man to enjoy shopping?It all started when...Rewind to my early childhood. My mother loved (an continues to love) to shop. And my father hated spending time at any shop. So I kind of became the go-to person for my mother to take on her long shopping expeditions. It helped that these shopping trips came with fun food at fun restaurants. Before long, I got hooked. By 12, I was getting money from my parents to pick out my own clothes for any occasion that warranted it.Then I started reading about everything. About gadgets, books, clothes and fashion trends, watches, accessories and what not. I subscribe to Esquire and GQ and keep myself in the know. Most of what is recommended as the flavor of the season is too expensive for me to afford. But it does not hurt to know, does it?. I am at the mall when a new electronic device hits the stores. I spend time with it to make sure I have an opinion on it .I was at the Apple store yesterday to check out the new Macbook Airs which hadn't arrived.So where do I like to shop?Here is where it gets interesting. It doesnt matter where I am and what I am shopping for. I can spend a few undisturbed hours at Frys or Best Buy for electronics. But I can also spend 45 minutes at Gap or J.Crew. I can easily kill an hour or more at the Apple Store or about 30 minutes at the Microsoft store. I am at home at Nordstrom as I am at Sports Basement. And I love Whole Foods. I can spend an entire morning at my local Whole Foods. Nothing is off limits- maybe not everything. I do not enjoy my local grocery shop. I am fine with Target but do not enjoy spending time at Walmart.What about online?Online anything is a time sink. Online shopping is no different. Online window shopping is the worst- when you know that you have no intention of buying something, yet there is this strong urge to compare prices, specs and what not on specific items. Been there, done that. A lot.Do you buy everything you see?Nope. Not even a fraction. If I were to buy even a portion of what I window shopped, I would go bankrupt. Amazon Prime is my friend, partner and guide when it comes to shopping. And part of the thrill of shopping is not to buy everything but to keep wanting it. I have obsessed continually over laptops and tablets and phones without ever buying them. My job affords me the very latest and best in electronic gadgets but there are still things I would love to buy but can never press the trigger. And that is half the fun.What about every other man in this world?Men like shopping as long as it is simple, easy and quick. Men dont like many choices. We like to keep it quick. And we dont like trying a million pieces on only to say no to everything. We like to budget and stick to it. And we like to buy the same thing over and over again. Why change something that works?Is there a point to this post?Nope. I had an interesting water cooler conversation on men and shopping recently that I thought I should write this. If you made it until this point to see if there was a point to all this, I am sorry. There is none. But there is a takeaway. If you would like that man in your life to enjoy shopping just as much as you do, find the one thing/store he loves and let him at it. Gift him a subscription to Esquire or GQ and get him to look at the latest fashion trends. Gift him a Wired magazine subscription so he can look at the coolest new gadgets. And let him buy his gadgets every once in a while. We will most certainly return the favor :). Who knows, you may be wrong about him after all. Maybe he is the closet shopper that you never got to see...