Many years ago I had the opposite happen. A longtime male friend who wanted to buy a bed asked me to go with him to help him decide (basically as ballast so he could work out how much partner disturbance there would be). The salesman kept talking to me and ignored him. I guess he assumed we were a couple and in that industry the woman has more influence about the decision.

But when I bought my house on my own I had many frustrating experiences and one fantastic one. On several occasions male real estate agents tried to sell me houses on their books that did not even closely match the requirements I had outlined.

On the other hand I dealt with a fabulous female real estate agent who listened carefully, took me to a lot of houses one afternoon with the caveat that she didn't think any of them was the one but to sharpen her understanding about what I liked and more importantly didn't like. A couple of weeks later she phoned me about a house that had come on the market that afternoon that she thought was ideal, I looked at it first thing next morning and put an offer in straight away. She got it completely right.