Would you like a diamond necklace with that beer?

Ah yes, a night out with the guys. Beer, pizza, some more beer, the game on a huge widescreen TV, maybe throw in a few Playboy playmates...all while shopping for your wife's Christmas present.

You think I'm kidding? Not at all.

Mike Galaska does not like to shop. He doesn't like the crowds or spending money. It's for women, he says. But pizza and beer? He can handle that.

Galaska, 48, of Bellevue, Neb., was among the hundreds of men who came out for men's night at Omaha jewelry store Borsheim's this week, which uses free pizza and beer to counteract the otherwise intimidating notion of buying jewelry.

And that's not all they're doing. It seems that the store has taken to hosting a ladies' night the week before, where women can fill out wishlists for their husbands to pick things from.

Galaska's wife filled out her wishlist the previous week at Borsheim's ladies' night. All Galaska had to do this week was say her name, and clerks began to bring out what his wife wanted.

"Whatever she brings, I'm going to buy," Galaska said of the salesclerk.

And buy he did - a silver chain necklace - before getting more pizza and beer.

For five years now, men have been attending the night geared exclusively to them at Borsheim's. After the success of the first year, organizers decided to hold a ladies' night the previous week so women could make their lists, said Susan Jacques, CEO of the company, owned by Berkshire Hathaway.

On a recent weeknight, about 1,200 women filled the 45,000-square-foot Borsheim's to drink wine and Perrier, eat pint-size pastries and fill out their holiday wishlists.

Apparently, jewelry stores are learning that the more comfortable a man is, the more likely he is to loosen his wallet.

But wait...haven't casinos known this for years? Walk up to a dice table or play some blackjack, even the slots, and in no time a pretty young woman wearing not much at all is offering you free drinks. And as long as you're playing, the drinks keep coming. It seems that retailers are finally coming around to this strategy, and not a moment too soon.

Men will buy an estimated $49 billion in apparel this year, a 5 percent rise from last year, said Marshal Cohen, chief analyst at NPD Group Inc., a market research company based in Port Washington, N.Y. Men now buy 70 percent of their own clothing, up from 25 percent in 1985, so stores are doing what they can to attract these often reluctant shoppers, he said.

That is especially evident around the holidays.....Saks Fifth Avenue brought in Playboy centerfolds to act as men's personal shoppers earlier this month in New York.

Granted, for stores like Saks, just a tad more uptown than a smoke-filled poker room, their foray into hiring Playboy playmates seems a big step - or possibly a dive, depending on how you look at it. But according to the research, the stores that do strive to go all out with a "party" atmosphere, certainly can, and do, expect big payoffs.

Designer Nicole Miller's 18 boutiques across the country have been holding their own men's nights for years, featuring cocktails and modelesque saleswomen in evening wear who often know the men's wives and what they want. It originally borrowed the idea from jewelry stores, said Bud Konheim, CEO of Nicole Miller Ltd.

Sales can increase as much as tenfold when a men's night is held and morale among salespeople stays high for weeks afterward, Konheim said.

"It's a very easy atmosphere for a guy to get lulled into having a good time and spending a lot of dough," he said.

Well, I'm not sure about the "lulled" part. It's tough to imagine that just providing beer and pizza is going to close the deal on a couple thousand in jewelry. I'd say their best idea is the whole wishlist thing, because with this the guy shows up ready to spend money - and he knows he's buying the right thing. But, as the stores say, it appears all their strategies are working. And many stores are expanding even further.

The Alfred Dunhill store in London features classic motorcycles, model planes and a humidor, while an Armani store in Milan has video games in the basement.

I don't know, the video games may be a bit off the mark, but maybe that's just me. What it's really about though is making the male shopping experience less like...well, shopping, and more like a sports bar. And I think stores are catching on.

And then of course there's Saks, hiring the centerfolds...as personal shoppers. Riiight...