It means so many things to so many people. For some it’s the ultimate pleasure. Others find it to be a necessary evil.

Some people find shopping to be a wonderful pastime. They can spend hours and hours browsing the shops, looking for who knows what.

Many times they can’t remember what it is that sent them out to forage and hunt – they just do it.

And all the while they’re enjoying the activity as much as the sports fan at the football, or the bookworm at the library.

It makes me wonder why some people like to shop, while others don’t.

In many cases it’s the female of our species that seems to enjoy this pursuit as a pleasurable experience. Have a look around the shopping centre and count how many men are sitting on the seats reading a newspaper.

They appear so patient, waiting for their female partner who is browsing the nearby stores.

Yes, I can hear you saying – “if you only knew”.

I’m curious about the belief that women are born with a shopping gene.

If that is really the case, then I surely missed out. My mother and sisters all love to shop and their idea of a great girls day out always includes some time at a shopping centre.

When they’re travelling – they make sure to visit all the shops, regardless of the fact that many of them are exactly the same as the ones at home.

You should have seen them when we went to Hong Kong!

It was at that point that I truly began to question if I had been adopted at birth.

Surely I couldn’t have been related to these women who insisted on visiting every single shop that was there.

I don’t think we missed any of them, and to top it off, we almost missed the plane home because I couldn’t get them out of the shops in the airport terminal. The doors were shut behind us as we clambered aboard the plane.

Unless you’ve got plenty of cash to splash, it doesn’t make sense to go shopping to cheer yourself up when you’re feeling miserable.

Yes, I know … all the self-help books tell you to buy yourself something nice when you’re feeling down in the dumps.