Shopping when you're a couple can - let's face it - be a pain in the face.

You're being dragged from pillar to the post, you've no real incentive to be there and it's really just a case of smiling and nodding when you're asked or handed things. Meanwhile, the other person feels like they're dragging a sack of potatoes around and feeling pressured into hurrying up. So, how can this situation be mitigated for everyone?

Simply don't go? Forgo relationships entirely and die alone? A shopping centre in Shanghai, China has the answer that could save relationships from shopping once and for all.

The Globe Mall has introduced storage pods for husbands - or wives, it's not gender-specific apparently - who can be seated in a glass tube with a gaming console that has a number of retro games, such as Tekken 3, Metal Slug, and Robocop Vs. Terminator.

Currently, the pods are free to use but its creators say that they'll soon roll out a small fee to use them and hope to introduce them in more shopping malls around China. The response, however, has been somewhat mixed.

Not unsurprisingly, the reaction's been relatively mixed on Chinese social media, with one woman asking the question pretty much everyone else is. "If my husband just wants to go out and play games, what's the point of bringing him out?"

 

Via ThePaper.cn