Everyone gives a sly — and somewhat biased — smile when they think of the stereotypical shopper. In their mind’s eye, they see this girl/woman looking into every shop she passes and browsing for hours before making a decision. If she is accompanied by a man, he is weighed down by shopping bags, has a bored-beyond-belief expression on his face and is trying to check his mobile phone without dropping everything he carries.

That is the stereotype. And for that combination of shoppers, a mall in Shanghai has reportedly introduced “rest booths” for shoppers’ companions to relax with their shopping bags, take a brief nap, read a book, stay hands free long enough to check their mail and messages and catch up on the past couple of hours of updates, play a game on their mobiles or on the computer screens provided in the booth ... Every possibility seems to have been thought of for those gallant guys who somehow did not have the good sense to say, “You go ahead and have a blast — I’ll stay home!”

My husband and I probably look the same when we meander through malls and markets: One of the couple is eager and ever-ready to explore every possibility before reversing direction and trudging all the way back to the first shop to buy what had caught the eye first; the other is more-than-happy to pick up that first attraction and skip the rest of the shops.

The difference in our case is that it is the man of the duo who is the enthusiastic shopper and it is the woman who radiates boredom and looks around for an escape from the endless examination of goods and goodies on display.

Naturally, when we wander through markets with friends, this rarity of a man is most wanted by everyone — the much better half of our pair!

He is popular among the ladies because he has so much information to give them, his keen shopper’s eye having spotted all kinds of things the less observant haven’t seen — and he is willing to go back and forth and in and out of alleys (or corridors) to lead them to where the best bargains are to be found.

He is also the favourite of the gents because he can relieve them for a time and while they rest and recuperate over a coffee, he escorts their wives down this lane and that backstreet and helps them to pick out the right colour, the most becoming scarf, and so on.

No rest booth for him, that is for sure!

It doesn’t matter if he has to tramp the same path a dozen times — for him, it is an adventure on each occasion because his eyes always alight on something new and interesting for himself or for the house — or for me.

Mostly, after facing long and loud disapproval from me, the non-shopper in our house, he has learnt not to acquire anything that is not for his personal use, but when he is in his element at exhibitions and fair grounds, where all that colour and confusion draws him like a bee to a flower, he often forgets those harangues and picks up things he could not bring himself to put down once he saw them at close quarters.

When we are back home and my mandatory grumble is done with, I toss those knick-knacks into a cupboard and forget about them — until suddenly we have to produce a gift at short notice and I remember the item but not where it is hidden away.

Then, there he is again, that eager beaver, ready to scour the shelves the same way he searches through the shops.

An enthusiastic shopper has his pluses, doesn’t he?

Cheryl Rao is a journalist based in India.