Buying Presents. Have you ever messed up?

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One year at Mothers Day , I asked my Mum what she wanted. She said "Something useful".
I wasn't sure what to get but then I found something useful.
I gave my present and my Mum said thanks. But when my brother found out what I had given her he was puzzled about my choice of present.
It was not that I didn't spend much. I spent a few pounds on it. And it was incredibly useful.
It was a very large bumper pack of toilet rolls. I think there were either 24 or 48 toilet rolls in it.
Have you ever bought something which others have thought was a little different?

Did the opposite thing. Found an awesomely cool unique thing just right for my mom. But when I returned to the store that thing... no longer existed.

Mom was an artist, and was into art history, and was a fan of Sister Wendy - the "art nun"- who hosted an art history show on PBS back in the Nineties or early 2000s.

I work for a company that counts inventory in retail stores. We were counting the inventory of a little college book store. It had a smallish largish art book written by Sister Wendy with great art reproductions. And it was all art about the lives and deaths of the saints. Art from the centuries inspired by the saints. Mom was not even religious but always said that "the lives of the saints are full of blood and thunder". AND... I looked in the table of contents.. yes...there it was ...a chapter on the particular saint with the same first name as mom. St. Barbara. And there she was...st Barbara as a young damsel imprisoned by her dad atop of a tower, in a very primitive medeaval style, but lovely. The book kicked ass in a whole bunch of ways as a gift for mom. But the store was not open for business the day we counted it. I returned a month or so later, and they no longer had it. Couldn't be found at Borders nor Barnes and Noble. It was out of print. You couldn't even find it on Ebay. DANG!

Awww.

I am reluctant to buy gifts. Most the gifts I buy, I don't get deliver or send. The few I have that come to mind as "messed up"" I got my athletic sisiter a sports bra. It was fleece like and she that was stupid purchase for exercise wear. My same sister loves the color orange so I sent her a used (barely) orange bar of soap. I got my nephew and nieces gifts when they visited and they left them all at my house (intentionally).

I guess the key is to give the gift, no strings attached - it's doesn't have to be "good". Ah well, another "fail" on my part. Giving cash seems impersonal, so I don't like that, but appropriate personal gifts elude me. So then I give nothing.

Orange is a nice colour.

I'm horrible with dates. If I didn't enter important dates on a calendar I'd forget them including my wife's birthday, my wedding anniversary, St. Valentine's Day, etc. Part of my problem is that when I wake up, that day is brand new. It's not really tied to the day before for me. I think it's an executive functioning thing since going through morning routines is rarely second nature to me. Every single day I have to run through the steps of doing simple things; as such, I'm having to focus on the tasks at hand rather than bigger picture important dates. It helps that my wife isn't a stickler about expecting gifts on the exact date. I can say: "This gift I'm giving you (family tickets to an early December Nutcracker ballet) is for your Christmas present." She's perfectly fine with that kind of thing. I will make it a point when possible to acknowledge the date after midnight the night before. Example: If we're both up at 12:05 am on her birthday: "Happy Birthday!" If I forget that it's her birthday when I wake up, I've already wished her happy birthday.

When I was 11 years old I got my brother a sweat shirt with Archie on it. For some reason I thought he's like it because I saw other kids, boys and girls, walking around with shirts with Archie Comics characters on them. He hated it. My mom liked it however, and she wore it. I wore it a couple of times to school but stopped because it didn't fit well. Then the other kids wanted to know why and one of them even sent me a not in class asking. I was annoyed, both by their question and by their use of a double negative. But I digress. That's the one time I remember seriously messing up.

Although toilet rolls are useful (and essential), I don't think they are really something people get as a gift.

I remember when I was 13 I gave my mother a crappy, rushed clock I made in design class at school. I put no thought or creativity into it, it was basically just a thin wooden square with a crappy drawing of cartoon lions on the wood and a yellow circle as a sun with numbers drawn around it to make the clock part, and a hole drilled in the middle of the sun to put the hands on and a battery mechanism thing on the other side. I had more imagination and creativity skills than that but for some reason I rushed through it carelessly and didn't focus.
I don't think she was expecting much from a 13-year-old kid with no money anyway.

In this thread how do these NTs have a nerve to say they hate your gift? I've always been taught that it's a social norm thing to pretend to like a gift you don't really like, to save their feelings. Ain't that what NTs do according to Aspies on this site, is be tactful and lie a lot to prevent feelings from getting hurt? Or doesnt that rule apply when it comes to an Aspie's feelings?

Probably an old cliche story at this point, but when I was dating, my girlfriend said she didn't really care about any gift-giving or a cake or anything for her birthday (the first since we had gotten together). So I didn't get a cake or anything. I don't like making a big deal out of my birthday, either, after all.

That was a bad idea. I was in my 20s, you'd think by then I'd have learned better about just believing people when they say things, but there we go.

When I was a child, I sent a valentines card from our dog (A girl) to my friends dog (A boy). He thought it was hillarious!

I never understood why people have to be so vague with their answers when ask what you like or tell you to just surprise them And then they have the nerve to openly say they hate your gift when I know society wants *us* to lie and pretend we like the gift we're given, because the person went through all the trouble of getting it for you. Even if it's a dingy pair of earrings left over from Halloween, or a sweater made by your aunt who is severely color blind and only selects yarn that feels like barbed wire.

Some people I know gave me a lot of things when I helped them move house. My Mum and I went to buy something who seemed to have everything something unusual for Christmas. It took ages to find something that we thought they didn't have. When we gave it he openly said "What do we want this for?" They didn't seem to sense the "We want to give you a present" side of things.