Gifts

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Why, when and what?
Problems: You oblige the other to say thanks.
If it is a book, the other might feel obliged to read it (and often you really had in mind to convince the other of something in this indirect way).
If it is an object, you would like know the other uses it.
Money, sometimes, if the person is in need (but only then), is the best solution.
And often it’s the way you do it that counts. And you always risk gaffes.
And after all we are really all misers

That's why I like gift cards. It's somewhere in between money and my own subjective "goals" for the other person. For example, I force them to read, but letting them decide on the book. Seems like a good compromise to me.

Yes, gifts are difficult sometimes, to receive as well as give. When I receive a gift I don't like, I feel a little guilty because I don't like it. The person who has given it to me has gone to the effort of buying it and wrapping it, thinking I will like it, so that makes me feel that I am ungrateful when I don't. So maybe I wish they hadn't bothered, lol. Also I am stuck with it, whatever it is.
I lived with a painting I really disliked because a dear friend had bought it for me. It hung in the hall and irritated me for years because I just didn't like it. Yet when my friend visited it gave her pleasure to see it there, so I didn't take it down. It wasn't until we moved house that I felt free to 'lose' it.