A few years ago my coworker was complaining that he had no idea what to get his wife for their 15th anniversary and he hated gift shopping.
I told him that I had met his wife twice, for less than ten minutes total, and even I knew that she was self conscious about some cosmetic damage that had happened to her wedding ring when she was in a car accident. He was married to her for 15 years and couldn't figure out that it would mean the world to her to have her ring repaired?
He was mad when I said it but he came back to work after the weekend and told me that he had thought about it a lot and he was mostly embarrassed because I was right. He spent the weekend looking for the kind of specialized jeweler that could repair the ring and he also worked with them to design a pair of earrings to match it.
His idea was that if she had something to open on their anniversary then he wouldn't have to borrow her ring and spoil the surprise. He put a love note in the earring box with the appointment details for the jeweler doing the ring repair.
TL;DR: the post is an accurate call out, and the men who are embarrassed and want to change are absolutely capable of it
It's so endearing and infuriating! Like the joke about how a student tells the professor how they'll "do ANYTHING to pass", the prof raising their eyebrow, leaning forward and saying,
"....have you tried studying?"
People don't need to be an expert in anything for basic troubleshooting. As in have you tried LITERALLY ANYTHING ELSE?
I was shopping on Amazon today for gifts, and I was kinda shocked that they still have a “Gifts for Him” and Gifts for Her” tab on the homescreen.
Like…that honestly sounds like some 1950s shit. “Hi, I, like, know you as a person, but I couldn’t be arsed, so I reduced you to your sex and bought you moisturizers and this pink Fortnite Gift Card.”
How about, “Gifts for crafters” “Gifts for relaxation.” “Gifts for home decorators.” Just…gifts for Natalie. You know what she likes. You SHOULD know what she likes.
I think that this reductive, impersonal norm is part of why gift-giving has become shit. If’s become so depersonalized, like asking chat GPT what a woman might want.
EDIT TO UPDATE: I asked for a (non-HP) LEGO castle for Christmas this year. Was excited to find out what they got me on Christmas, only…family texted me saying to be specific because “You know what you want, so just tell us.”
So now I basically know I’m getting a LEGO Construction: Neuschwanstein castle set. And…am I excited? Sure, I guess. But this is not how gift giving is supposed to work. If there is no surprise then why are they wrapped up? We have Amazoned and wish-listed our way out of the magic.
One of my favorite Youtubers, Angela Collier, has a video about the economics of gift giving that lays out why I hate Christmas shopping so much. It's the obligation of it. Like, I have to get a gift and spend around $X for all of these people. But, like, it's almost certainly something they would never have bought for themselves, so I am spending money just so they can have extra junk that they have to figure out what to do with? It's THE WORST. Just setting money on fire every year.
I can't convince most of the people in my life to just.... stop. Like, please dont get me anything. Take the money you'd spend on me and spend it on whatever you wish I would have bought you with that money. You still get a gift and you still spend the same amount, but you get something nice and I get the gift of opting out of all of it.
Buying things for kids in my life is the ONLY exception. Because they want everything and can't buy any of it themselves, so spending that cash just brings me happiness. And if they make me a drawing or something in return? The absolute best gift.
Nearly everyone on my Christmas list is middle aged with limited cabinet space so I started buying gifts at the grocery store a few years ago. It satisfies the ritual requirements and trying to figure out where to keep a bottle of coffee liqueur is a temporary issue.
My family also is tired of the stuff accumulation, so we do a secret santa with all the adults. That way you're just buying and receiving one gift, and it allows us to spend more on that person so it's likely something they actually want. We also do stockings, where everybody gets something small and usually consumable for everyone else.
I mean, that's great if the person needs something and doesn't already have a version that they chose for themselves. I would love to be able to find something like that for everyone. But then you have people who already own the stuff that they want and love. And you have to hope to find something they didn't already think of buying for themselves.
I think it is worth mentioning though is that unless they're into that specialty it can actually go to waste. Just watch someone's face when they gift an expensive bottle of wine and the recipient uses it to mix half and half with orange juice or something because they're not a wine person and don't like the taste of wine.
I've tried $5 wines, $50 wines, one time a $100 bottle. It all just tastes like someone abused an innocent bottle of grape juice.
The appreciation of a gift isn't always equivalent to the value of the gift.
I think related to the idea of practical gifts is just buying them more of things they already use.
Maybe I'm old, but if someone gave me a bag of groceries I'd be a lot happier than if they gave me a gift card or a novelty shirt to go in my drawer stuffed full of 47 different novelty shirts I wore precisely once so they could take a picture of me wearing it and I can never throw away because they might one day ask about it and get grumpy if I can't produce it for a second picture ten years later.
Hell yeah I'd be very happy if someone gifted me a bag of nice vegan stuff that I normally can't justify the expense of. There's certain artisan stuff I've never even tried, or isn't available in the UK. Even just £10 worth of Tesco growers harvest soya milk would make me happy.
Fully get the point, but also why do people buy gifts that someone wouldn’t get themselves? I always just buy something the person has specifically mentioned they want, or something I know they will use (ex. gift card to their fav restaurant).
Because of the obligation to buy gifts even when you don't know a person very well.
We have extended family that we see maybe once or twice a year. I love them a lot but I don't know what they own or where they like to eat in their hometown or what they're super into but haven't bought themselves. So it's guesswork at best. And the same goes for what they buy me.
And then you have people like my mother in law who try really, really hard but just don't really.... get me. I get nice things from her but she doesn't really understand my aesthetic or how I move through the world so the gifts are just... not my first choice a lot of the time.
That is fair. I have very few relatives so I only buy gifts for them, and friends (who of course I know well if they make my holiday list).
I never really thought about people buying gifts for those they aren’t close to, but that certainly explains who’s buying all those awful holiday candles at target.
Yeah, there's a whole expectation out there for buying gifts for your kids' teachers and such as well. And some offices do gift exchanges. Just so much buying little dumb shit for people who you have only ever exchanged smalltalk with. And it's all propped up by our consumer economy that is telling you all the time that EVERYONE NEEDS TO BE GIFTED
Some people are genuinely almost completely impossible to buy gifts for. My mum is like this - not only is it hard to get something she'll like in the first place, but you can buy her the most considerate gift ever and she just randomly fucking hates it. When she retired, he workmates clubbed together and bought her a massive voucher for a crafting store, because she knits and crochets. It's been two years and she still constantly complains about it being the worst gift ever because she has to drive to the shop to get craft supplies. It was so incredibly considerate and generous, and you'd think they'd bought her a bag of shit.
Ooof that sucks. My mom is a little like that - she always hated what I bought her. BUT she’d always get jealous of things I’d buy for myself. Now I just pretend that her gifts are things I bought myself, wait till she says something, and gift it to her.
Oh man, that's such a good strategy! Unfortunately it wouldn't work for my incredibly fussy mother, but lately we've started just buying my parents a couple's gift of restaurant vouchers at Christmas and getting her her favorite perfume for her birthday and that seems to make her perfectly happy, especially since she now gets some homemade crap from the grandkids and of course, anything she gets from them is absolutely perfect and the best gift ever. I pity anyone else having to buy her a gift, though!
My mom was the same. Nothing—NOTHING—was ever good enough. Ever. I could write little notes to myself about the things she liked or wanted and buy gifts accordingly, and it was NEVER appreciated. Not only that, but she would use it as an excuse to scream at me nonstop for weeks on end. In the end, I think giving her an excuse to abuse me was the gift she wanted me to give her. I have legit gifting trauma now lol.
Urgh that's horrible and I'm so sorry she's like that!
The frustrating thing with my mum is that she is a great mum. She's loving and caring and will always defend and protect us. But also she has a bunch of unresolved childhood trauma she absolutely refuses to do anything about (she literally told us she won't get therapy because there is "too much" to deal with going back too far into childhood, and she's too old to deal with all that.) Gifting is one of the things where it comes out sideways and she'll feel unappreciated and hard done by for the weirdest, randomest reasons that you absolutely cannot guess in advance.
She also feels she's very easy to buy gifts for, even though she won't tell you what she wants and her only hobbies are knitting and crochet and apparently a related gift for those is an outrageous mistake? Although that might just be that she felt it was "impersonal" because it was a voucher, and "inconsiderate" because the shop is a mildly complex 30 minute drive away (she hates driving).
She's also an absolute menace of a gift giver. She'll ask you to tell her exactly what you want, then decide, for no reason, that buying it is too complicated, tell you to buy it yourself, and that she'll then give you the money back for it and you can give it to her and she'll wrap it and then give it back to you. I don't do that any more (I just tell her I'll let my dad deal with it and skip over her entirely, which does annoy her, but is less stressful for everyone).
I totally have gift trauma from the whole experience as well! I stress out so much about what is okay to give people, and my husband finds it hilarious. He's the kind of guy who jumps to the supermarket on the 23rd December to buy his mum whatever random thing he thinks is fine. Although, don't even get me started on *her* gift giving, jesus fuckin christ, it can definitely be worse.
I hear you on having a parent with massive unresolved childhood trauma lol. It’s so sad…she never got the love she needed from her parents. They threw her away. So she grew up with trauma that festered and turned into generational trauma she tried passing onto me. I broke the cycle. I wish I could have helped her, but she didn’t want to be helped. She wanted to hurt people to pay the world back for hurting her. I tried. I really did. We ended up estranged and she passed last year, only two days before Christmas. I never got closure. I wish I could have reached her. I tell myself that she’s at peace now. I hope that’s true.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to go on like that. This time of the year is touchy for me. Thank you for listening.
I'm so sorry that you had to go through that. I don't know your situation, but know that you did all you could and sometimes it doesn't work out. It's sad that it ended this way but don't put any blame on yourself. Sometimes people are just too deep into their own problems, that they can't imagine a life without it, because it's become such a habit to live like that. And as a random Internet stranger, I'm proud of you for breaking the cycle.
Take some extra care of yourself during this time of the year whenever you feel like you need it.
The end of physical media has made gifting even harder, too. Stuff like CDs, DVDs, video games used to be the best easy yet still personal gifts because you'd usually have a good idea of their tastes and what you think they'd like.
My in-laws legitimately make it harder on themselves too, because they refuse to do any video game, movie, TV, or music band related gifts (unless my MIL is making like, patterned fleece pajama pants or something). My partner and I play video games, and we and my SIL are a bunch of geeks.
I love buying presents for people and spend a lot of time figuring out what they'd like. A lot of the time it's consumables (cheese baskets this year, homemad vanilla extract last year), but also something personal that is based upon their interests. I hate buying candles or gift sets because they're a waste.
I got my best friend whose cat died a laser engraved picture of his cat's face that he wears daily. I don't wanna spend money because some corporation says so but I do love spoiling the people I love.
I just threw away a bread maker my bestie bought for me for my birthday. As much as I love and appreciate the gift and the thought, it takes us space and I’ve only used it twice in the five years I’ve had it.
Most of the people in my life have a tradition where we give each other the gift of not having to exchange gifts. If we see something small that we think someone would like, we get it for them without the expectation of getting something in return. All gifts given are a bonus to the gift of not being obligated to exchange gifts.
There is an added bonus to this system in that any gifts that are given are things that someone actually thought a person would want and not just something given for the sake of giving something. They also feel more genuine when they happen.
This is what I push for every year. The only ones on board so far are my brother and his wife. We all have kids and we buy for each other's kids, because shopping for kids is fun. But that's it.
It started with me and a friend that had birthdays close to each other at a stage in life where we would usually give each other money. After we passed the same $20 bills back and forth we saw that it was stupid and things expanded from there. I just want to spend time with people, and I'm an adult who doesn't need gifts for a birthday. Anything I want is too expensive to accept or small enough that I just got it when I wanted it.
Agreed on this, though it doesn't solve the problem of gift expectations for people who wouldn't appreciate a handmade gift. And, as a neurodivergent mom of two small kids, it's also the thing I can least afford this year. :(
I'm not great with knowing which toys go over well with which age ranges, so I googled "toys for 8 year olds" and found tons of boy/girl divided lists. All the "girl" toys looked low quality, or they were my little cousin's least favorite colors, or perfectly fine but I know they'd bore the crap out of her (dolls, dress up).
The "boy" list? Those toys looked awesome. Things that I, who was once an 8 year old girl, would have loved getting for Christmas.
Anyway, my little cousin is getting beyblades and a lego spider for Christmas. I expect the spider will at least go over well, because I got her an animatronic scorpion last year and she loved it.
Whoever's in charge of gendering toy lists, I wish I could kick them in the kneecaps.
Hahaha so my partner started rewatching mad men and I told him I legit don’t think I can do it with him because it activates me so much. We watched episode 2 last night and they were talking about « what do women want » for extended sequences like the room full of men being like « if I knew I wouldn’t be here I’d be banging them hur dur » and shit like that sent me into orbit but of course it’s meant to convey real attitudes toward women. I just couldn’t stand it. Like I don’t know. Ask?
Many men view women as an enemy faction whose stated goals must be counter to their inner desires. So foreign are concepts like love and family to some people that they choose instead to assume deception.
I’ve actually seen that on most online retailers in Australia. Still as useful as pulling a healthy tooth but it was still refreshing to see common categories as “for entertainers” “for home chefs” “for relaxation” “geeky gifts” ect that weren’t particularly gendered.
The fact those lists didn’t have anything under $160 is a different issue 🤣
Always bothers me too : I'm in the middle of picking Christmas gifts for my daughter and I think I'll overdose on pink and glitter before finding the Dinosaur Princess she asked for (can't let Santa mess up !)
I always thought the gifts for men and women tab was more for when gift giving gets more problematic. I use it for when we do a white elephant exchange since something a lot of people present would enjoy is kind of the intention with those.
When my husband and I were dating he took me to see Despicable Me 2 with his family. I uh, thought the movie was pretty awful, but I couldn't stop talking about how much I loved the blue trenchcoat that the female love interest wore in the movie.
That Christmas he gave me a teal winter coat, apologizing that he couldn't find a coat that was the exact same shade and cut as the one in the movie. He'd searched and saved up for 6 months to find the coat. It was perfect. I loved it so much.
The next Christmas, after we got married, his gift to me was that he'd called the bartender of one of the restaurants we went to during our honeymoon to learn the recipe of the drink I had with dinner and loved. That restaurant closed years ago but I can still have my favorite drink from there because he took the time to learn it for me as a gift.
He does this sort of thing constantly. I'm a huge rambler and he actually listens to me, and then uses those rambles to gift me things that I love and make me happy. Because he loves me and loves to make me happy! I don't know what goes through the heads of dudes that think that's such a difficult burden. I'm so lucky I met my husband.
My husband spent months contacting zoos that do animal encounters and got me a red panda experience where I got to feed and pet a red panda. I legit cried at the restaurant when he revealed that. I also have ten T-shirts with red pandas on them becaus obviously.
I will ask for specific things that I know he doesn't think of, like an advent calendar or a reminder to fill my stocking (he did not grow up in a stocking house), but with those minor statements he knocks it out of the park.
Oh wow! I organised a red panda feeding & petting experience for my red panda-obsessed daughter a few years ago! I’ll never forget the way she glowed with happiness during it - I’m not sure who was more adorable, her or the red panda! :)
Mine is like this too! And super observant. Two separate Christmases (several years apart) he bought me unique coats he knew I would love. He heard me talk about how I've never really gotten to make a space my own and bought me these really pretty, starry Eeveelution wall scrolls for the area around my PC. He'll randomly buy me video games I've never heard of that are exactly up my alley.
Oooh I love the Eeveelutions, that's awesome! One of my favorite things to do is throw video games at my husband that I think he might like, and he does that too. It's fun learning the tastes of another person and trying to find stuff they'd like.
THIS.
Gift giving is not some magical, psychic, sixth sense some are born with, and the rest are left to wander blindly without.
It's simply paying attention.
Bless last Christmas and my birthday for being my final straw. My birthday is 3 days after Christmas. Another year of getting nothing from my ex except a fight both days, my friends surprised me by showing up to my house. They had cakes, balloons, banners, presents, wine, joy, everything. My now ex had a huge tantrum that my friends made him “look bad”. I moved out of our room that week, took 6 months to gain to confidence to say I was moving out and another 5 to make it happen but my birthday is in 2 weeks.
I am single, my dad, dog and I drove nearly 4000 km last week to be home, I am safe, I will be having a REAL birthday surrounded by even more love.
Don’t ever let anyone tell you it’s too exhausting to celebrate you. You know you would never let someone you love feel that way!
A lot of the men in question do not do their own shopping for themselves and use their wives as a personal shopper for their clothes, medicine, food, and gifts for their family. Not only do they not know how to shop for their wives, they don't know how to shop period. (dunno if that's better or worse)
I would like to start changing the way we talk about situations like this. It’s not that they ‘don’t know how’ , it’s that they don’t want to make the effort. It’s a choice, not an inability. It reveals their true character.
Mom buys the gifts and dad signs his name. Or maybe mom does that too.
This couple I knew have a kid who was having a birthday party. And when they were unwrapping their present the dad says "I can't wait to see what we got him, hahaha."
I worked in a deli. The amount of men who came in and didn’t know what their wives liked or bought was ridiculous. They not only obviously never did the shopping, but they didn’t know something as simple as the kind of sandwich she likes? And not a “I can’t remember if she prefers maple or brown sugar ham” (which I can understand) but “I don’t know if she likes ham or turkey.”
Me too, they just used it five times in a row and only two were correct (also "whom you are married to" really ought to have been "to whom you are married")
I understand that people are unsure about its usage, but in that case just don't use it!
I very much agree with the opinion expressed however.
Same. You can't just use 'whom' for everything! I do get that it can be confusing to know which one to use if you never learnt, though.
My favourite simple method, for anyone else confused, is to replace it with 'they/them' (or whichever relevant pronouns). 'Whom' works when you would use 'them' and 'who' works when you would use 'they'. 'Whom' and 'them' both have an 'm', so it's easy to remember.
Eg. 'who has lived in the same home as you' could be replaced with 'they have lived in the same home as you'. 'Them', and therefore 'whom', wouldn't work. Easy peasy!
I learned it as a teen (we're not native English speakers) because my dad always watched this British detective show called Inspector Morse, and whenever his buddy would ask "who from?", he would reply with "From WHOM, Lewis. From whom."
Last year for Mother's day/anniversary/birthday (all of them fall in the same month), he bought me tickets to see my favorite band. I had never been able to see them for one reason or another. He also surprised me (about 2 weeks before the show) with meet & greets for said band, knowing I've had a major crush on the lead singer since high school.
One of the first years we were together (and super duper poor), he saved for months to buy me a deep tissue massage and a hotel room just for me. He took care of our son, bought me snacks, my favorite wine, and a portable DVD player to watch movies on (it was many years ago).
A couple of years ago, he bought me a Beauty and the Beast ring from the Disney collection at JC Penny. I had been looking at it every time we passed by, but never mentioned it because I don't buy myself jewelry for some reason.
3 years ago, my Pommie passed away, she was my Ride or Die and we had been through SO FUCKING MUCH together. She predated my husband. One day, I saw a husky and was smitten. I never wanted a husky because of the stories I heard. But I couldn't get this one out of my mind. He got her for me about a month before Christmas.
I could go on. He's such a wonderful guy and shows me in other ways how much he loves me everyday. Do we have our issues? Of course! Do we drive each other insane? Hell yes, it's part of the job description! Would I do it again? Abso-fucking-lutely.
Haha. Omg. My ex got me fleece pajamas and a fleece ONESIE even though he knew very well that I run warm and would sweat to death in it. There's definitely more fun gifts but I think I've blocked some of it out 😅
One of the things I love about my partner is that he's incredibly thoughtful when it comes to gifts. Not just for me, but for everyone in his life. And if he doesn't know, he asks.
My heart breaks for any woman that deals with that. Seeing this post makes me appreciate my husband even more! Just tonight he was telling me how excited he is for Christmas because I will be so surprised with my gift.
I know someone with an expensive engagement ring because she had it saved as her dream ring since she was 19 and her husband wanted to give it to her. Her brother had it custom made since it was no longer in production and she would find out if her husband did it. Her husband and brother orchestrated the entire proposal. Her husband did pay her brother back for the ring.
I know what my wife wants, I know what she needs, but I also have a little list of stuff she mentions during the year that I can reference, because I have the memory of a goldfish swimming in a bucket of mercury.
Last year, my husband (we're now separated) gave me a cheap air fryer oven - because our old expensive one died - and a IOU for manicure or massage. His later defense for the oven was because I use it the most. I threw away the IOU because he's not good for it. I can't even get him to pay me his share of stuff these days. Yes, he's abusive and I'm leaving him.
My husband isn't hard to shop for per se. It's that my gifts are never good enough. Ex. He complained endlessly that his towels were scratchy, old, and such. So I gifted him a new set of towels for Christmas. He doesn't use them because they are too fluffy and take up to much room. His room is filled to the brim with his shopping addiction purchases. So apparently nice fluffy towels take up precious storage space. I'm in the process of divorcing him.
He has had his own room because he's a train horn snorer.
Honestly, it's a skill you have to develop if you want to. If your spouse isn't a gift person, it's all good. If they value gifts, it's worth putting in the effort to learn the skill.
I have spent the last 15 years learning the skill and am always happy when people notice. It's been a lot of searching "gifts for X trait" lists, making a quick note when someone mentions something they're interested in (my boss wants to try bougie anchovies, so I made a note and threw it on my Christmas list), and thinking of the things they complain about and how a gift could solve it. For instance, my husband complained about cold feet even with nice socks and slippers. So I searched for the best foot baths and bought him one. My assistant loves sweet wine so I picked out local sweet wines with snack pairings that shed never splurge on.
I honestly tell the rest of the family gift ideas for other people because I've trained my brain to think of thos things. And honestly, I'm always happy to help because it's fun!
What helps me a lot is a list on my phone/PC where anytime I hear a close person talk about something they would like, I note it down. When holidays or their birthdays are coming, I don't even have to think about the gifts.
Even right as I was writing this comment, my partner came to me talking how he's just watched a video where someone tested recipes from The Witcher and Gothic cookbooks. That someone praised a sandwich with bread fried in egg and chicken marinated in beer and we too need to do it one day. As a Witcher fan and nerd myself, I promptly added the cookbooks to my list.
I know him well enough to be certain that if within a week from now he doesn't buy the books on his own nor makes the sandwich, he'll completely forget about it.
My husband is a master gift giver and I am a terrible gift giver. Like so so so bad. I fret over gifts massively and unless something is expensive or bougie I just don’t expect people to want it or like it, my husband included. Even though that’s not my vibe at all for myself
Me too. And my husband is much better than me. His birthday is the worst. I couldn't even remember the actual day until after we were married and now it'll be a week before and I'll have a shiiiiiiit moment and panic buy something.
I don't think I'm a bad partner though. I try hard in other areas, ha.
Set Google Calendar reminders for you a month in advance, for all birthdays and other times you need to give gifts.
Then anytime the person in question mentions they like something or it seems like something would be helpful to them open the calendar event and add a list.
For example, my friend's birthday is in three weeks and I got a calendar reminder email saying "Friend's 35th Birthday (Ideas: idea 1 (mentioned July 9), idea 2 (thought of October 11), etc etc)".
If not for the reminders, I would forget birthdays of even my closest loved ones.
And I have shit memory for small details like this.
Whenever I read a gift event reminder, I don't remember the gift ideas at all even when the date and location I heard/thought of it is explicitly written down.
But, with the event reminder?
I'm golden.
I have a few weeks to ascertain if my friend has gotten that thing she said she liked or has solved that minor inconvience or whatnot.
Then I have a few weeks for the gift to arrive (in case it's not Amazon or whatever with fast shipping).
If they have not gotten the thing for themselves/solved the issue they were having, then bam I am good to go.
And if they have, then a week or two subtly poking around lets me figure out an idea that works.
Ever since I have started using this system over a decade ago, I've had no complaints. :)
This sounds like something my dad would say to my mom, who is easily one of the easiest to buy gifts for, and since he’s retiring this year (a firefighter, who works 1 day and is off 2) and constantly watches Fox News at home, i decided to buy my mom the best gift I could think of to hopefully save their marriage: a tv for their bedroom
Like literally write stuff down in your notes app when she asks for something throughout the year and then consult the list after thanksgiving, it's just so easy
And some men are, too!! Ive been with my husband for 15 years, I know what he likes, but I also know that if he wants something hes just going to go and buy it for himself 😂
A few years ago my coworker was complaining that he had no idea what to get his wife for their 15th anniversary and he hated gift shopping.
I told him that I had met his wife twice, for less than ten minutes total, and even I knew that she was self conscious about some cosmetic damage that had happened to her wedding ring when she was in a car accident. He was married to her for 15 years and couldn't figure out that it would mean the world to her to have her ring repaired?
He was mad when I said it but he came back to work after the weekend and told me that he had thought about it a lot and he was mostly embarrassed because I was right. He spent the weekend looking for the kind of specialized jeweler that could repair the ring and he also worked with them to design a pair of earrings to match it.
His idea was that if she had something to open on their anniversary then he wouldn't have to borrow her ring and spoil the surprise. He put a love note in the earring box with the appointment details for the jeweler doing the ring repair.
TL;DR: the post is an accurate call out, and the men who are embarrassed and want to change are absolutely capable of it
Did she like it?
She did!
Sounds like he did great and was thoughtful once he got smacked with reality. That’s a great happy ending.
It's so endearing and infuriating! Like the joke about how a student tells the professor how they'll "do ANYTHING to pass", the prof raising their eyebrow, leaning forward and saying,
"....have you tried studying?"
People don't need to be an expert in anything for basic troubleshooting. As in have you tried LITERALLY ANYTHING ELSE?
“I’ve tried nothing, and it’s not working!”
Props to him for figuring out how to work it and make it even better once you kickstarted his brain and blew the dust off of it.
This left me with a mental image of someone blowing the dust out of a man's brain like it's an N64 cartridge.
I was shopping on Amazon today for gifts, and I was kinda shocked that they still have a “Gifts for Him” and Gifts for Her” tab on the homescreen.
Like…that honestly sounds like some 1950s shit. “Hi, I, like, know you as a person, but I couldn’t be arsed, so I reduced you to your sex and bought you moisturizers and this pink Fortnite Gift Card.”
How about, “Gifts for crafters” “Gifts for relaxation.” “Gifts for home decorators.” Just…gifts for Natalie. You know what she likes. You SHOULD know what she likes.
I think that this reductive, impersonal norm is part of why gift-giving has become shit. If’s become so depersonalized, like asking chat GPT what a woman might want.
EDIT TO UPDATE: I asked for a (non-HP) LEGO castle for Christmas this year. Was excited to find out what they got me on Christmas, only…family texted me saying to be specific because “You know what you want, so just tell us.”
So now I basically know I’m getting a LEGO Construction: Neuschwanstein castle set. And…am I excited? Sure, I guess. But this is not how gift giving is supposed to work. If there is no surprise then why are they wrapped up? We have Amazoned and wish-listed our way out of the magic.
One of my favorite Youtubers, Angela Collier, has a video about the economics of gift giving that lays out why I hate Christmas shopping so much. It's the obligation of it. Like, I have to get a gift and spend around $X for all of these people. But, like, it's almost certainly something they would never have bought for themselves, so I am spending money just so they can have extra junk that they have to figure out what to do with? It's THE WORST. Just setting money on fire every year.
I can't convince most of the people in my life to just.... stop. Like, please dont get me anything. Take the money you'd spend on me and spend it on whatever you wish I would have bought you with that money. You still get a gift and you still spend the same amount, but you get something nice and I get the gift of opting out of all of it.
Buying things for kids in my life is the ONLY exception. Because they want everything and can't buy any of it themselves, so spending that cash just brings me happiness. And if they make me a drawing or something in return? The absolute best gift.
Nearly everyone on my Christmas list is middle aged with limited cabinet space so I started buying gifts at the grocery store a few years ago. It satisfies the ritual requirements and trying to figure out where to keep a bottle of coffee liqueur is a temporary issue.
Merry Christmas, here's some mayo!
Hey with the price of food, I think going all Stardew Valley with it is fine.
All the fanciest dijon mustards.
My family also is tired of the stuff accumulation, so we do a secret santa with all the adults. That way you're just buying and receiving one gift, and it allows us to spend more on that person so it's likely something they actually want. We also do stockings, where everybody gets something small and usually consumable for everyone else.
This is why I like practical gifts that I know the person can use and also love.
I mean, that's great if the person needs something and doesn't already have a version that they chose for themselves. I would love to be able to find something like that for everyone. But then you have people who already own the stuff that they want and love. And you have to hope to find something they didn't already think of buying for themselves.
then you get them consumables, on a higher tier that they’d normally get for themselves.
nice wine or liquor, fancy chocolates, imported cheese, high quality olive oil…
tons of options like that! they’re always appreciated and won’t go to waste.
I love a good food gift. They are the best gifts in my opinion.
I think it is worth mentioning though is that unless they're into that specialty it can actually go to waste. Just watch someone's face when they gift an expensive bottle of wine and the recipient uses it to mix half and half with orange juice or something because they're not a wine person and don't like the taste of wine.
I've tried $5 wines, $50 wines, one time a $100 bottle. It all just tastes like someone abused an innocent bottle of grape juice.
The appreciation of a gift isn't always equivalent to the value of the gift.
I mean, they did mention that.
In your case, wine wouldn't be applicable because, regardless of tier, you don't get it for yourself .
I've met more than a few people who think that just because I drink alcohol it means I'll like their favourite wine.
It's a bit weird because I love cider, and grape juice, but wine just ends up being a solid nope.
Well, that's a category issue.
You don't get lower tier wines, so they shouldn't get you upper tier ones.
I got my parents a red balloon date night. It's a three course meal with drink and they can choose that date.
I find that works well if nothing they need
Bag of potatoes.
I think related to the idea of practical gifts is just buying them more of things they already use.
Maybe I'm old, but if someone gave me a bag of groceries I'd be a lot happier than if they gave me a gift card or a novelty shirt to go in my drawer stuffed full of 47 different novelty shirts I wore precisely once so they could take a picture of me wearing it and I can never throw away because they might one day ask about it and get grumpy if I can't produce it for a second picture ten years later.
Hell yeah I'd be very happy if someone gifted me a bag of nice vegan stuff that I normally can't justify the expense of. There's certain artisan stuff I've never even tried, or isn't available in the UK. Even just £10 worth of Tesco growers harvest soya milk would make me happy.
Fully get the point, but also why do people buy gifts that someone wouldn’t get themselves? I always just buy something the person has specifically mentioned they want, or something I know they will use (ex. gift card to their fav restaurant).
Because of the obligation to buy gifts even when you don't know a person very well.
We have extended family that we see maybe once or twice a year. I love them a lot but I don't know what they own or where they like to eat in their hometown or what they're super into but haven't bought themselves. So it's guesswork at best. And the same goes for what they buy me.
And then you have people like my mother in law who try really, really hard but just don't really.... get me. I get nice things from her but she doesn't really understand my aesthetic or how I move through the world so the gifts are just... not my first choice a lot of the time.
That is fair. I have very few relatives so I only buy gifts for them, and friends (who of course I know well if they make my holiday list).
I never really thought about people buying gifts for those they aren’t close to, but that certainly explains who’s buying all those awful holiday candles at target.
Yeah, there's a whole expectation out there for buying gifts for your kids' teachers and such as well. And some offices do gift exchanges. Just so much buying little dumb shit for people who you have only ever exchanged smalltalk with. And it's all propped up by our consumer economy that is telling you all the time that EVERYONE NEEDS TO BE GIFTED
Like the adult version of doing valentines for everyone in your class, but somehow worse.
Some people are genuinely almost completely impossible to buy gifts for. My mum is like this - not only is it hard to get something she'll like in the first place, but you can buy her the most considerate gift ever and she just randomly fucking hates it. When she retired, he workmates clubbed together and bought her a massive voucher for a crafting store, because she knits and crochets. It's been two years and she still constantly complains about it being the worst gift ever because she has to drive to the shop to get craft supplies. It was so incredibly considerate and generous, and you'd think they'd bought her a bag of shit.
Ooof that sucks. My mom is a little like that - she always hated what I bought her. BUT she’d always get jealous of things I’d buy for myself. Now I just pretend that her gifts are things I bought myself, wait till she says something, and gift it to her.
Oh man, that's such a good strategy! Unfortunately it wouldn't work for my incredibly fussy mother, but lately we've started just buying my parents a couple's gift of restaurant vouchers at Christmas and getting her her favorite perfume for her birthday and that seems to make her perfectly happy, especially since she now gets some homemade crap from the grandkids and of course, anything she gets from them is absolutely perfect and the best gift ever. I pity anyone else having to buy her a gift, though!
My mom was the same. Nothing—NOTHING—was ever good enough. Ever. I could write little notes to myself about the things she liked or wanted and buy gifts accordingly, and it was NEVER appreciated. Not only that, but she would use it as an excuse to scream at me nonstop for weeks on end. In the end, I think giving her an excuse to abuse me was the gift she wanted me to give her. I have legit gifting trauma now lol.
Urgh that's horrible and I'm so sorry she's like that!
The frustrating thing with my mum is that she is a great mum. She's loving and caring and will always defend and protect us. But also she has a bunch of unresolved childhood trauma she absolutely refuses to do anything about (she literally told us she won't get therapy because there is "too much" to deal with going back too far into childhood, and she's too old to deal with all that.) Gifting is one of the things where it comes out sideways and she'll feel unappreciated and hard done by for the weirdest, randomest reasons that you absolutely cannot guess in advance.
She also feels she's very easy to buy gifts for, even though she won't tell you what she wants and her only hobbies are knitting and crochet and apparently a related gift for those is an outrageous mistake? Although that might just be that she felt it was "impersonal" because it was a voucher, and "inconsiderate" because the shop is a mildly complex 30 minute drive away (she hates driving).
She's also an absolute menace of a gift giver. She'll ask you to tell her exactly what you want, then decide, for no reason, that buying it is too complicated, tell you to buy it yourself, and that she'll then give you the money back for it and you can give it to her and she'll wrap it and then give it back to you. I don't do that any more (I just tell her I'll let my dad deal with it and skip over her entirely, which does annoy her, but is less stressful for everyone).
I totally have gift trauma from the whole experience as well! I stress out so much about what is okay to give people, and my husband finds it hilarious. He's the kind of guy who jumps to the supermarket on the 23rd December to buy his mum whatever random thing he thinks is fine. Although, don't even get me started on *her* gift giving, jesus fuckin christ, it can definitely be worse.
I hear you on having a parent with massive unresolved childhood trauma lol. It’s so sad…she never got the love she needed from her parents. They threw her away. So she grew up with trauma that festered and turned into generational trauma she tried passing onto me. I broke the cycle. I wish I could have helped her, but she didn’t want to be helped. She wanted to hurt people to pay the world back for hurting her. I tried. I really did. We ended up estranged and she passed last year, only two days before Christmas. I never got closure. I wish I could have reached her. I tell myself that she’s at peace now. I hope that’s true.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to go on like that. This time of the year is touchy for me. Thank you for listening.
I'm so sorry that you had to go through that. I don't know your situation, but know that you did all you could and sometimes it doesn't work out. It's sad that it ended this way but don't put any blame on yourself. Sometimes people are just too deep into their own problems, that they can't imagine a life without it, because it's become such a habit to live like that. And as a random Internet stranger, I'm proud of you for breaking the cycle. Take some extra care of yourself during this time of the year whenever you feel like you need it.
You're very sweet. Thank you. It means a lot.
The end of physical media has made gifting even harder, too. Stuff like CDs, DVDs, video games used to be the best easy yet still personal gifts because you'd usually have a good idea of their tastes and what you think they'd like.
My in-laws legitimately make it harder on themselves too, because they refuse to do any video game, movie, TV, or music band related gifts (unless my MIL is making like, patterned fleece pajama pants or something). My partner and I play video games, and we and my SIL are a bunch of geeks.
Upvote for Angela Collier she covers so many topics and does so in a very cozy way that just helps me relax.
I understand that parasocial relationships are not real but also I want to be her best friend.
My mom discovered cooking and dieting youtubers recently, and she immediately started calling them her “friends.”
We had to sit her down and explain some things.
I love buying presents for people and spend a lot of time figuring out what they'd like. A lot of the time it's consumables (cheese baskets this year, homemad vanilla extract last year), but also something personal that is based upon their interests. I hate buying candles or gift sets because they're a waste.
I got my best friend whose cat died a laser engraved picture of his cat's face that he wears daily. I don't wanna spend money because some corporation says so but I do love spoiling the people I love.
I really enjoy figuring out what to buy people too, it's like a puzzle. I just need to stop impulse buying one more gift that my nieces will love.
I may have been paraphrasing Angela’s half-remembered words unbeknownst from last year, actually.
I just threw away a bread maker my bestie bought for me for my birthday. As much as I love and appreciate the gift and the thought, it takes us space and I’ve only used it twice in the five years I’ve had it.
Most of the people in my life have a tradition where we give each other the gift of not having to exchange gifts. If we see something small that we think someone would like, we get it for them without the expectation of getting something in return. All gifts given are a bonus to the gift of not being obligated to exchange gifts.
There is an added bonus to this system in that any gifts that are given are things that someone actually thought a person would want and not just something given for the sake of giving something. They also feel more genuine when they happen.
This is what I push for every year. The only ones on board so far are my brother and his wife. We all have kids and we buy for each other's kids, because shopping for kids is fun. But that's it.
It started with me and a friend that had birthdays close to each other at a stage in life where we would usually give each other money. After we passed the same $20 bills back and forth we saw that it was stupid and things expanded from there. I just want to spend time with people, and I'm an adult who doesn't need gifts for a birthday. Anything I want is too expensive to accept or small enough that I just got it when I wanted it.
Capitalism
I make Christmas gifts for people. Time is a good present.
Agreed on this, though it doesn't solve the problem of gift expectations for people who wouldn't appreciate a handmade gift. And, as a neurodivergent mom of two small kids, it's also the thing I can least afford this year. :(
I'm not great with knowing which toys go over well with which age ranges, so I googled "toys for 8 year olds" and found tons of boy/girl divided lists. All the "girl" toys looked low quality, or they were my little cousin's least favorite colors, or perfectly fine but I know they'd bore the crap out of her (dolls, dress up).
The "boy" list? Those toys looked awesome. Things that I, who was once an 8 year old girl, would have loved getting for Christmas.
Anyway, my little cousin is getting beyblades and a lego spider for Christmas. I expect the spider will at least go over well, because I got her an animatronic scorpion last year and she loved it.
Whoever's in charge of gendering toy lists, I wish I could kick them in the kneecaps.
what the fuck I want an animatronic scorpion
They probably have balls if you’re looking for other targets.
You sound like an excellent aunt. I also use this approach for niblings and my own
Hahaha so my partner started rewatching mad men and I told him I legit don’t think I can do it with him because it activates me so much. We watched episode 2 last night and they were talking about « what do women want » for extended sequences like the room full of men being like « if I knew I wouldn’t be here I’d be banging them hur dur » and shit like that sent me into orbit but of course it’s meant to convey real attitudes toward women. I just couldn’t stand it. Like I don’t know. Ask?
Many men view women as an enemy faction whose stated goals must be counter to their inner desires. So foreign are concepts like love and family to some people that they choose instead to assume deception.
I’ve actually seen that on most online retailers in Australia. Still as useful as pulling a healthy tooth but it was still refreshing to see common categories as “for entertainers” “for home chefs” “for relaxation” “geeky gifts” ect that weren’t particularly gendered.
The fact those lists didn’t have anything under $160 is a different issue 🤣
Always bothers me too : I'm in the middle of picking Christmas gifts for my daughter and I think I'll overdose on pink and glitter before finding the Dinosaur Princess she asked for (can't let Santa mess up !)
I always thought the gifts for men and women tab was more for when gift giving gets more problematic. I use it for when we do a white elephant exchange since something a lot of people present would enjoy is kind of the intention with those.
When my husband and I were dating he took me to see Despicable Me 2 with his family. I uh, thought the movie was pretty awful, but I couldn't stop talking about how much I loved the blue trenchcoat that the female love interest wore in the movie.
That Christmas he gave me a teal winter coat, apologizing that he couldn't find a coat that was the exact same shade and cut as the one in the movie. He'd searched and saved up for 6 months to find the coat. It was perfect. I loved it so much.
The next Christmas, after we got married, his gift to me was that he'd called the bartender of one of the restaurants we went to during our honeymoon to learn the recipe of the drink I had with dinner and loved. That restaurant closed years ago but I can still have my favorite drink from there because he took the time to learn it for me as a gift.
He does this sort of thing constantly. I'm a huge rambler and he actually listens to me, and then uses those rambles to gift me things that I love and make me happy. Because he loves me and loves to make me happy! I don't know what goes through the heads of dudes that think that's such a difficult burden. I'm so lucky I met my husband.
My husband spent months contacting zoos that do animal encounters and got me a red panda experience where I got to feed and pet a red panda. I legit cried at the restaurant when he revealed that. I also have ten T-shirts with red pandas on them becaus obviously.
I will ask for specific things that I know he doesn't think of, like an advent calendar or a reminder to fill my stocking (he did not grow up in a stocking house), but with those minor statements he knocks it out of the park.
Awww, that sounds wonderful!!
did the same but with penguins for my soon to be husband. He was sooooo extremely happy <3
Oh wow! I organised a red panda feeding & petting experience for my red panda-obsessed daughter a few years ago! I’ll never forget the way she glowed with happiness during it - I’m not sure who was more adorable, her or the red panda! :)
Don't mind me, just crying at work 😂 these stories are so sweet
Mine is like this too! And super observant. Two separate Christmases (several years apart) he bought me unique coats he knew I would love. He heard me talk about how I've never really gotten to make a space my own and bought me these really pretty, starry Eeveelution wall scrolls for the area around my PC. He'll randomly buy me video games I've never heard of that are exactly up my alley.
Oooh I love the Eeveelutions, that's awesome! One of my favorite things to do is throw video games at my husband that I think he might like, and he does that too. It's fun learning the tastes of another person and trying to find stuff they'd like.
Aww this is so wholesome
THIS.
Gift giving is not some magical, psychic, sixth sense some are born with, and the rest are left to wander blindly without.
It's simply paying attention.
SMH
Bless last Christmas and my birthday for being my final straw. My birthday is 3 days after Christmas. Another year of getting nothing from my ex except a fight both days, my friends surprised me by showing up to my house. They had cakes, balloons, banners, presents, wine, joy, everything. My now ex had a huge tantrum that my friends made him “look bad”. I moved out of our room that week, took 6 months to gain to confidence to say I was moving out and another 5 to make it happen but my birthday is in 2 weeks.
I am single, my dad, dog and I drove nearly 4000 km last week to be home, I am safe, I will be having a REAL birthday surrounded by even more love.
Don’t ever let anyone tell you it’s too exhausting to celebrate you. You know you would never let someone you love feel that way!
A lot of the men in question do not do their own shopping for themselves and use their wives as a personal shopper for their clothes, medicine, food, and gifts for their family. Not only do they not know how to shop for their wives, they don't know how to shop period. (dunno if that's better or worse)
I would like to start changing the way we talk about situations like this. It’s not that they ‘don’t know how’ , it’s that they don’t want to make the effort. It’s a choice, not an inability. It reveals their true character.
This is it 100%. They make effort for plenty of other things. They don’t want to make effort for this.
Mom buys the gifts and dad signs his name. Or maybe mom does that too.
This couple I knew have a kid who was having a birthday party. And when they were unwrapping their present the dad says "I can't wait to see what we got him, hahaha."
Oddly enough, they aren't together anymore.
I worked in a deli. The amount of men who came in and didn’t know what their wives liked or bought was ridiculous. They not only obviously never did the shopping, but they didn’t know something as simple as the kind of sandwich she likes? And not a “I can’t remember if she prefers maple or brown sugar ham” (which I can understand) but “I don’t know if she likes ham or turkey.”
Well it ain't better.
ive said it a hundred times before but men simply do not conceptualise women as people
Yes, but their incorrect use of "whom" is really getting to me.
Me too, they just used it five times in a row and only two were correct (also "whom you are married to" really ought to have been "to whom you are married") I understand that people are unsure about its usage, but in that case just don't use it! I very much agree with the opinion expressed however.
Right?! This just makes it look like they want to sound fancy. Doesn't sound fancy if you use it wrong...
And don’t even fucking get me started on whomst.
Whomstomever would do a thing like that?!
Same. You can't just use 'whom' for everything! I do get that it can be confusing to know which one to use if you never learnt, though.
My favourite simple method, for anyone else confused, is to replace it with 'they/them' (or whichever relevant pronouns). 'Whom' works when you would use 'them' and 'who' works when you would use 'they'. 'Whom' and 'them' both have an 'm', so it's easy to remember.
Eg. 'who has lived in the same home as you' could be replaced with 'they have lived in the same home as you'. 'Them', and therefore 'whom', wouldn't work. Easy peasy!
English teacher here - match the m’s! (Whom/him/me and who/he/I)
I learned it as a teen (we're not native English speakers) because my dad always watched this British detective show called Inspector Morse, and whenever his buddy would ask "who from?", he would reply with "From WHOM, Lewis. From whom."
Will always remember that, lol.
I couldn't make it past the second misuse.
I got my girlfriend the perfect gift. We left a store during a trip and she was bemoaning not buying those earrings, but I already had!
I got lucky in that department.
Last year for Mother's day/anniversary/birthday (all of them fall in the same month), he bought me tickets to see my favorite band. I had never been able to see them for one reason or another. He also surprised me (about 2 weeks before the show) with meet & greets for said band, knowing I've had a major crush on the lead singer since high school.
One of the first years we were together (and super duper poor), he saved for months to buy me a deep tissue massage and a hotel room just for me. He took care of our son, bought me snacks, my favorite wine, and a portable DVD player to watch movies on (it was many years ago).
A couple of years ago, he bought me a Beauty and the Beast ring from the Disney collection at JC Penny. I had been looking at it every time we passed by, but never mentioned it because I don't buy myself jewelry for some reason.
3 years ago, my Pommie passed away, she was my Ride or Die and we had been through SO FUCKING MUCH together. She predated my husband. One day, I saw a husky and was smitten. I never wanted a husky because of the stories I heard. But I couldn't get this one out of my mind. He got her for me about a month before Christmas.
I could go on. He's such a wonderful guy and shows me in other ways how much he loves me everyday. Do we have our issues? Of course! Do we drive each other insane? Hell yes, it's part of the job description! Would I do it again? Abso-fucking-lutely.
Haha. Omg. My ex got me fleece pajamas and a fleece ONESIE even though he knew very well that I run warm and would sweat to death in it. There's definitely more fun gifts but I think I've blocked some of it out 😅
One of the things I love about my partner is that he's incredibly thoughtful when it comes to gifts. Not just for me, but for everyone in his life. And if he doesn't know, he asks.
My heart breaks for any woman that deals with that. Seeing this post makes me appreciate my husband even more! Just tonight he was telling me how excited he is for Christmas because I will be so surprised with my gift.
I know someone with an expensive engagement ring because she had it saved as her dream ring since she was 19 and her husband wanted to give it to her. Her brother had it custom made since it was no longer in production and she would find out if her husband did it. Her husband and brother orchestrated the entire proposal. Her husband did pay her brother back for the ring.
Wow.
What a true bro.
Both literally and figuratively.
I know what my wife wants, I know what she needs, but I also have a little list of stuff she mentions during the year that I can reference, because I have the memory of a goldfish swimming in a bucket of mercury.
Last year, my husband (we're now separated) gave me a cheap air fryer oven - because our old expensive one died - and a IOU for manicure or massage. His later defense for the oven was because I use it the most. I threw away the IOU because he's not good for it. I can't even get him to pay me his share of stuff these days. Yes, he's abusive and I'm leaving him.
My husband isn't hard to shop for per se. It's that my gifts are never good enough. Ex. He complained endlessly that his towels were scratchy, old, and such. So I gifted him a new set of towels for Christmas. He doesn't use them because they are too fluffy and take up to much room. His room is filled to the brim with his shopping addiction purchases. So apparently nice fluffy towels take up precious storage space. I'm in the process of divorcing him.
He has had his own room because he's a train horn snorer.
I am a terrible gift giver and this post makes me feel like a horrible partner… I didn’t think that I was. 😞
Honestly, it's a skill you have to develop if you want to. If your spouse isn't a gift person, it's all good. If they value gifts, it's worth putting in the effort to learn the skill.
I have spent the last 15 years learning the skill and am always happy when people notice. It's been a lot of searching "gifts for X trait" lists, making a quick note when someone mentions something they're interested in (my boss wants to try bougie anchovies, so I made a note and threw it on my Christmas list), and thinking of the things they complain about and how a gift could solve it. For instance, my husband complained about cold feet even with nice socks and slippers. So I searched for the best foot baths and bought him one. My assistant loves sweet wine so I picked out local sweet wines with snack pairings that shed never splurge on.
I honestly tell the rest of the family gift ideas for other people because I've trained my brain to think of thos things. And honestly, I'm always happy to help because it's fun!
What helps me a lot is a list on my phone/PC where anytime I hear a close person talk about something they would like, I note it down. When holidays or their birthdays are coming, I don't even have to think about the gifts.
Even right as I was writing this comment, my partner came to me talking how he's just watched a video where someone tested recipes from The Witcher and Gothic cookbooks. That someone praised a sandwich with bread fried in egg and chicken marinated in beer and we too need to do it one day. As a Witcher fan and nerd myself, I promptly added the cookbooks to my list.
I know him well enough to be certain that if within a week from now he doesn't buy the books on his own nor makes the sandwich, he'll completely forget about it.
Yep same
My husband is a master gift giver and I am a terrible gift giver. Like so so so bad. I fret over gifts massively and unless something is expensive or bougie I just don’t expect people to want it or like it, my husband included. Even though that’s not my vibe at all for myself
Me too. And my husband is much better than me. His birthday is the worst. I couldn't even remember the actual day until after we were married and now it'll be a week before and I'll have a shiiiiiiit moment and panic buy something.
I don't think I'm a bad partner though. I try hard in other areas, ha.
Set Google Calendar reminders for you a month in advance, for all birthdays and other times you need to give gifts.
Then anytime the person in question mentions they like something or it seems like something would be helpful to them open the calendar event and add a list.
For example, my friend's birthday is in three weeks and I got a calendar reminder email saying "Friend's 35th Birthday (Ideas: idea 1 (mentioned July 9), idea 2 (thought of October 11), etc etc)".
If not for the reminders, I would forget birthdays of even my closest loved ones.
And I have shit memory for small details like this.
Whenever I read a gift event reminder, I don't remember the gift ideas at all even when the date and location I heard/thought of it is explicitly written down.
But, with the event reminder?
I'm golden.
I have a few weeks to ascertain if my friend has gotten that thing she said she liked or has solved that minor inconvience or whatnot.
Then I have a few weeks for the gift to arrive (in case it's not Amazon or whatever with fast shipping).
If they have not gotten the thing for themselves/solved the issue they were having, then bam I am good to go.
And if they have, then a week or two subtly poking around lets me figure out an idea that works.
Ever since I have started using this system over a decade ago, I've had no complaints. :)
They don’t care. It’s that simple.
"Okay. I'm seeing your point. But maybe a $1900 diamond would make her smile and shut up?"
This sounds like something my dad would say to my mom, who is easily one of the easiest to buy gifts for, and since he’s retiring this year (a firefighter, who works 1 day and is off 2) and constantly watches Fox News at home, i decided to buy my mom the best gift I could think of to hopefully save their marriage: a tv for their bedroom
How tech savvy is he? If you put a "parental block" on the Fox channel would he realize what's going on and know how to fix it?
Like literally write stuff down in your notes app when she asks for something throughout the year and then consult the list after thanksgiving, it's just so easy
On the other side, my mother was shocked and impressed that when my father bought her a dress for Christmas, it was exactly her size.
They shared a closet!
A good rule of thumb when deciding whether to use "who" or "whom" is to replace it with "she" or "her" and see which works better.
it should be "a person to whom you have been married for 7 years, who has lived in the same house..."
Okay but some of us are just genuinely hard to shop for and that’s on us.
And some men are, too!! Ive been with my husband for 15 years, I know what he likes, but I also know that if he wants something hes just going to go and buy it for himself 😂