Shopping with someone can tell you a lot about them. In fact, shopping is a recommended exercise to participate in with someone if you are trying to determine how compatible you are with them. Shopping tests our planning and executing abilities on a very basic, exemplary level. If you want to know how someone manages money, time and energy, and generally speaking, how responsible they are, shopping is a good way to find out. What would it tell you if you were spending the day with someone and they announced that they needed to shop unexpectedly without making a list or a budget, bounced around the store without a plan, their behavior erratic and confusing, then was dissatisfied with their purchases when they got home because they had forgotten items or purchased unnecessary items?
Responsible people become overwhelmed and exacerbated by irresponsible people, and need to take them in small doses. Shopping with a person can tell you a great deal about that person’s level of responsibility. When a responsible person sees that they person they are keeping company with does no preparation for a shopping excursion, it is disconcerting. The individual will not make a shopping list or consult their budget. They are driven to shop based on their feelings and whims, and will frequently be completely unprepared for the shopping decisions they will face.
In the store, their behavior is flighty and emotional. They do not seemingly have an objective or a process of any sort. They are unscrupulous about certain costly purchases and hung up on inane ones. They do not follow a methodical path around the store, but instead bounce from one end to the other unpredictably. They may react emotionally or illogically to other shoppers and employees. Someone who is more responsible and efficient is likely not compatible with this type of behavior.
And lastly, once the irresponsible person gets their purchases home, they are still frantic and excitable because they likely forgot a number of items and the gravity of the unwise purchases is finally hitting them, prompting a new process of returning to the store to return items and pick up the ones that escaped the individual in their last shopping attempt.