Although it frustrates my family, I’m not a big fan of Black Friday. This year, with many stores opening on Thanksgiving night, my dislike for this process was even more evident. My wife tried to cajole me into joining her and the older three girls who are home for Thanksgiving on an outing tonight, followed by a 4am departure to go to Wichita (the nearest big city to our little town) for even more shopping. I’m not going. They’re not happy about it, but I’m not going.

You see, I believe there are two ways to shop for anything. I believe that those methods are ingrained in our psyche. While I’ll admit that I use both methods at times, I’m a hunter when it comes to gift purchasing.

I stalk my prey, usually through careful thought about exactly what I want to buy the person. I look at ads. I look through catalogs. I search the internet. I even keep a list for each person in our family…a list of ideas that would fit each one perfectly.

It’s not just about getting the deal. Don’t misunderstand, I love getting the best deal out there. And I’ll work hard to find it. But this is something deeper. I get my heart set on a very specific gift. Then I go out and hunt it down. One year I was looking for a particular style and color of white hat. Honestly, I don’t even remember who it was for, but I can tell you all about the characteristics of that hat. I would select a store, go in, search for the hat, and if it wasn’t there…I was gone. No looking around at other items. No compromise as to color. Or style. I was hunting the great white hat, and it would be mine.

I eventually succeeded at finding the hat. My hunter instincts were satisfied. I had stalked my prey, found it, killed (well, bought it actually), and dragged it home. I’m pretty sure I didn’t beat my chest afterwards and I don’t think I grunted to my fellow hunters about my hunter-shopping prowess, but I can’t be 100% sure that I didn’t. Anything is possible.

The other end of the spectrum are gatherers. They wander from aisle to aisle, store to store, not really searching for anything in particular. They comparison shop in a way that is totally foreign to me. I use the internet as my comparison shopping hunting spear. Why walk around when I can compare everything I need to compare right here from my computer? But gatherers enjoy the process of shopping. They like to touch the prospective purchases. They like to see what each item looks like in different light. They often gather in groups, bouncing ideas off each other like crazy.

I hunt alone. At most, I take along a trusted aide to assist in the hunt.

Ironically, I do sometimes go on gathering expeditions. I’m especially bad about this at the grocery store. I’ll go in for a particular item, but know that I have time, so I hunt my item down and kill it (ok, I put it in the cart, but kill it sounds so much cooler!), and then I begin going up and down the aisles. I don’t actually “gather” all that much. I’m actually gathering information. Heck, I wouldn’t have bought those Nori Sheets to make the most excellent sushi if I hadn’t been a gatherer on one shopping expedition. Let’s just not mention that (1) I had the sheets for almost a year before I used them, (2) I still have over half the sheets, and (3) I’m the only one in the house who will eat them…so they will last FOREVER. The important thing is, I found them on a gathering shopping trip.

I’ve also decided that hunters and gatherers should not attempt to shop together. Come on folks, you know exactly what I mean. Go to any store that has dressing rooms and look at the guys sitting in the chairs outside the dressing rooms. You know, the ones holding the purses. They are hunters, and they are usually there with their gatherer significant others. Think about it…most guys don’t even bother to try on the clothes they just hunted. Sometimes I think the thought is “if it doesn’t really fit when I get home, I can always return it”. Probably not the smartest thought in our hunter heads…but it seems to work in a weird sort of way.

I know that I sound negative about gatherers, but I’m really not. Hunters and gatherers are just approaching shopping from different perspectives. Neither one is better than the other. They’re just different. Heck, I use both of them, although I tend towards hunting much more often. You probably have a favorite way of shopping too.

So the next time you’re getting ready to go shopping, think about which paradigm works for you. Are you a hunter or a gatherer? How about your friends? Your significant other? What method do they tend to use more often?