As summer rolls into full swing, we men prepare ourselves for the inevitable reality of shopping with the women in our lives. Whether it’s a girlfriend, sister, mother, daughter, or just a close friend (Ouch, Friendzone – it’s cool we’ve all been there), men will make the fateful decision to attend a shopping adventure with whoever the lucky ladies are in our lives. We’ve all heard the age old tales of guys wanting to choke themselves into a coma to avoid this endeavor, however, most of the time they work their way through it.

If you noticed, I said they above because I actually enjoy shopping. Mostly for myself, but on occasion going with my mama and sister have been known to turn out some pretty fantastic times. Do I get stuck wanting to rip the eye balls out of skull sometimes? Certainly, but normally that is cured with some type of delicious food or an attractive girl that walks in the store (I’m not advocating stalking, just when you’ve been in Anthropologie for 37 minutes a pretty face is a welcome change from the cabinet knob section which progressively has gotten a lot less exciting than when you discovered it 17 minutes into the Boston Marathon of clothing trips). On this last adventure, I really started to notice there are certain categories that all guys fall into on these shopping trips.

Since I tried to cut back on the sappiness of my non-sports article, I figured why not give this a shot. So without further ado, here are the

5 Categories of Guys on a shopping trip:

1. The one with all the bags

Guys, do you know those fantasies you have while you’re working out of saving small children trapped under a car or finally being able to take your shirt off at the beach and be proud of all the work you’ve put in? Yeah, well this is really what all those hours at the gym turnout to be for. You’re the bag guy. Not because the ladies can’t carry it but because you’re a gentleman and offer in the first store to be sweet or sometimes she just asks so nicely. Then 7 stores and 4 purchases later you’ve got 3 bags in both hands trying to figure why the Bath and Bodyworks bag feels like someone dropped a 45-pound dumbbell in it. You’re praying for a venue change so you can drop the bags in the trunk and get a rest.

But this pays off in the long run, you get major brownie points and makes great practice for getting all the grocery bags in 1 trip.

2. The one who's glued to his phone

We’ve all been here. It’s Saturday and she wants to go out around noon. You can’t justify saying no because the Dawgs don’t play until 3:30, but LSU and Florida play at noon and if LSU can stick it to the Gators then the Dawgs still have a chance at the SEC East Title. Well… maybe not there specifically but you get the idea. So you’re out in the shops with your phone Gorilla-glued to your hand so tight you can feel your palms slowly pooling up enough sweat to build a water park for ants. Every 30 seconds you look down at your phone praying for Leonard Fournette to become a grown man once again and treat the Gators like the small children they are. Suddenly, you hear someone calling your name. You freak. You think the Rapture has come and God is calling you up to Heaven. God’s voice sounds extremely familiar though and quite feminine as well, nothing like the masculine Morgan Freeman sounding figure you’ve always pictured in your mind. You turn around quickly to meet your maker and smack directly into the low-hanging paint bucket that for some reason is suspended in air like it’s been pulled directly out of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (the cartoon one from Fantasia 2000, not the Nicholas Cage one. Yikes.). You realize it wasn’t God but your girlfriend laughing at you for hitting your head and saying she’s ready to go.

Or maybe you’re just so bored you want Twitter to save you so you continually refresh until you find something interesting.

3. The one who is WAY too into it

“Babe, try this one.” “Wait, hold on this one is nice, too.” “Does that size work for you?” “You want me to go get some coffee?” “I think the red one looks better.”

This guy is either a tortured soul or he is extremely opinionated neither of which makes for a good shopping companion. He is grabbing 3 or 4 different things that are all different colors and giving them to whoever he’s with. He has no regard for size, style, or color he’s simply picking things out. I’ll go ahead and say his heart is probably in the right place. He wants the girl to look good and think that he knows what she likes, but it’s just too much. Everything he grabs is horrendous and the girl probably hates all of it. He gets good points for trying unless he’s being a dick about it. Any guy who tries to take over a woman’s shopping trip and force clothes on her is a dick. Just stand there and say she looks beautiful because chances are she probably does.

4. The one who explores

Your dream of becoming Indian Jones is finally a reality. You’re in a foreign land with shiny trinkets lining the shelves. There are women in what seem to be tribal gowns shifting throughout the store. There are 83 different types of scented hand lotions that all smell like a mix between a vanilla, coconut, and a sea of lavender rose pettles in a spring meadow, whatever the hell that shit is. You move from table to table and clothing rack to clothing rack observing the many women and other fellow males throughout the store. After exploring the whole store, you either find a place to rest your legs or you take another approach: try to touch as many different items in the store as possible before you have to leave. Sure, it’s a little gross and you should probably wash your hands as soon as you leave but it makes for a heck of an interesting shopping trip. Each store you go in you see if you can beat your record from the previous shop. You have to be sneaky so no one notices, cause let’s be honest, it’s weird as shit but it does make the time pass faster.

5. The one that says, “Yeah, I’m not doing that/I’m gonna wait outside/I’ll meet you at ____”

Admittedly, this is a catch-all. Realized my word count and figured nobody really wants to read all this so I through it all together. Any who, all these fall pretty much under the same category anyways. You’re either a father or brother because no boyfriend could get away with saying any of those lines.

I guess there is a final category of the guys that just like to help. The ones that are the trooper through the whole trip. They never complain or ask how much longer it’s going to be. They wait patiently and offer their opinions when asked for it. They hold their girl's hand and escort her from shop to shop, wanting only to be thanked by that bright smile on her face. Only a special few can fall into this category. Unfortunately for me, there isn’t a way to make this funny so I refuse to make it a full-blown category.

These guys are the Real MVPs. If you got one of these, makes sure to keep him around, ladies.