About gifts
(Wrote this in Dec. 2024, didn’t post it until now.)
Lately, even more than usual, I’ve been noticing how differently different people feel about giving and receiving gifts.
For example:
- Some people love to give and/or receive presents with the understanding that the content of the gift is pretty much irrelevant; what’s important is the giving and receiving.
- Some people love to give and/or receive presents, but only when the presents are particularly well-suited to the recipient; what’s important is feeling seen, feeling like someone knows you well enough to know what would delight you.
- Some people love the surprise of giving and/or receiving a gift where the recipient doesn’t know what the gift is until they open it.
- Some people dislike surprises and would rather only receive gifts that they know about ahead of time.
- Some people fret about whether the gifts they’re giving and the ones they’re receiving are (approximately) balanced in monetary value.
- Some people find various aspects of giving and/or receiving gifts super stressful.
And I feel like there’s often a mismatch between what the giver wants to get out of a gift-giving interaction and what the recipient wants to get out of it, and that can cause friction and stress.
The rest of this post is mostly about my own personal feelings about receiving gifts. It’s not intended as a criticism of anyone (and I always appreciate the thought when someone gives me something); this is just an exploration and description of some aspects of my psyche. But if you’re likely to feel criticized by my discussion of my generally not liking to receive gifts, then it might be best to skip the rest of this post.
I’m in that last category on the list above: I find the whole gift thing stressful. I like giving gifts when I know that they’re wanted, but I don’t like feeling required to find a good gift for someone at a specific time of year, and I don’t like giving gifts that may turn out to be unwanted. And I particularly don’t get along well with receiving gifts.
For me, a lot of the problem with receiving gifts is that my tastes are apparently quite idiosyncratic and hard to predict. It’s pretty rare for anyone, even close friends who’ve known me for many years, to give me a gift that I particularly like (without consulting me ahead of time). It has happened now and then (and a few such gifts have been spectacularly wonderful—thank you to those of you who’ve given me such gifts!), but I haven’t been especially fond of the vast majority of gifts that I’ve received.
And because of the way my brain works, I find it distressing to receive a gift that I don’t like. I’m a people pleaser, and super conflict avoidant (those aren’t good things, but they’re pretty deep-rooted parts of my personality); if someone gives me something, and I express unhappiness about it, I feel like I’m being ungrateful, or even hurtful. So then I feel the need to act like I like the gift, which can sometimes make things worse. (“I saw how much you loved the cheap plastic duck that I got you last year, so this year I got you a hundred of them!”)
And sometimes even a gift that might under normal circumstances be fine ends up not working so well for me. For example, a friend recently gave me two paper books. I certainly appreciated the thought, but I am in the middle of trying to read all of my unread paper books, and I have about a year left to go on that project (after nearly ten years of progress), and so if someone gives me paper books right now, that increases how long it’ll take me to finish this already-long project.
(Relatedly, part of the problem with physical gifts that I don’t want is that I hate throwing things out, so such gifts add to my pile of stuff-to-give-away. And giving stuff away takes time and energy for me, and some of my giveaway stuff is stuff that nobody wants, so it just sits around in my giveaway closet for years.)
Things go better if the gift starts as an offer rather than just presenting me with something. For example, if someone asks me if I want such-and-such, and I know that they’re fine with my saying no, that usually works out okay (and I usually say no). But even there, I sometimes get some anxiety about saying no.
(Another part of the problem between me and gifts is that I have enough money that when I want something, I generally just buy it for myself. And the things that I don’t do that for are generally expensive enough that I would be uncomfortable receiving them as presents. And so even when someone asks before buying or making me a present, part of the calculation for me is whether I’m willing to inconvenience them that much, by causing them to spend money and/or time and effort on me. This, too, has much more to do with the quirks of my psyche than with the other person; they’re offering, so I should take them at their word that it’s something they’re willing to do. But when I perceive a situation as my costing someone else time or money or work, it makes me tense, whether or not they perceive it that way.)
And acts of service similarly don’t work well as gifts for me. For example, if someone offers to do my dishes, I hear that both as a criticism of me (for not having already done my dishes) and as a probably resentful offer to spend time and effort on my behalf, which I’ll then feel guilty about.
So in general, it’s simplest to just not give me gifts. I don’t need them, and they almost always make me feel stressed, and the chances that I’ll truly like whatever the gift is are pretty small.