Happy to see that I'm not the only one. I have to say that I can't understand how married men did go through shopping before the invention of the mobile phone - perhaps they hade the guts to just say no?

The Quartier latin is a very dangerous area for book-lovers. between the bouquinistes des quais de la Seine, the huge Gibert Jeune second-hand shop and all the specialised second-hand bookshops around especially Rue des Ecoles, you're bound to leave the area many hundreds of euros poorer. But one thousand euros? Surely you must have bought some antiquarian stuff?

Nah, mate, quantity, pure quantity. Plus highly expensive specialist reference materials that I adore.

Same thing happens with me when I go shopping with Kitten. I usually end up sitting outside the changeroom with a group of pathetic-looking boyfriends loaded down like pack-mules.

The problem is that most women shop for random things without any prior planning. Shopping should be like a military sortie - e.g. don't shop for "maybe bags", shop for "a navy leather bag that can be worn over the shoulder, with minimal bling and some detailing like a braided strap or bits of suede, most likely found at Prada" This reduces the pointless wandering considerably.

Of course, I will break my own rules for books. I even drew a map of Istanbul's grand bazaar on a napkin so I could find the old book quarter easily.

I'm sure there must have been plenty of academic studies on the subject. Surely there must be a female shopping gene. Not that I am much in favor of resorting to biology to explain human behavior, but when all alternative explicative models fail...

Ah, well my dear eerie, there is a reason I describe my own shopping expeditions as "Strike, Counter Strike" and am quite pleased that I can keep the sortie to a specified time window (which is adapted to the specific nature of the operation, obviously a rug buying operation requires different tactical approaches than suit buying, etc).

You guys clearly don't understand the romance, the adventure, that is shopping...

If I were a nutty American billionnaire I would certainly fund research into the shopping gene...

Shopping should be like a military sortie

Heh. Various parties have been amazed . . . and somewhat annoyed . . . at what have been called my "shopping assaults" which include an analysis of the most efficient order in which to hit various stores.

There may actually be something in this "shopping gene" thing. The process of hunting requires different strategies than the process of gathering. Since men specialized in hunting and women, gathering, it's not too surprising that there'd be some bleed-over into their modern analogs.

I have, BTW, been able to improve my shopping efficiency by orders of magnitude by making use of the Internet. I hardly ever need to enter a physical store anymore, even for clothes. There are discount sources available online even for brands like Isaia, Brioni, Kiton, Corneliani, etc.

I use the internet for pre-selection. Physical stores are still useful for trying things on to confirm the fit.

There may actually be something in this "shopping gene" thing. The process of hunting requires different strategies than the process of gathering.

So the village is starving and the cavewomen are off in the forest (mall) looking for "anything edible" (sales) as opposed to "ripe raspberries" (specific item).

Meanwhile, the cavemen are busy stalking (surfing the internet) a herd of mastodons (specific item) and have discovered a series of watering holes (stores) where they congregate.

Obviously I'd rather be out hunting mastodons.

Well, that division is a bit over simplified, but probably deep underlying divisions in "resource gathering strategies" divided by gender, and conditioned by "soft" specialisation or resource focus tendencies, do indeed echo back....

If one keeps in mind soft specialisation and does not over-read, probably quite explanatory for general tendencies if not hard rules.