Holiday/Birthday Gifts

Post Reply New Topic

I HATE the tradition of giving gifts on holidays and birthdays. It feels like a @#$*ing obligation. Why can't I just buy you something when I have some extra money and you need something or want something and can't afford it. Why do I have to put so much effort into finding the least sucky presents to give to people just because of where the Earth is in relation to the sun? I can kind of understand giving gifts to kids. They are so easy to find gifts for and they don't have jobs so they can't generally buy things that they want, and they may not even know about cool stuff that they would want, but whenever I give gifts to other adults, I feel one of 3 things:

1. I feel good, because I got the person a great gift that they may never have even thought to buy for him/herself.

2. I feel like I just wasted a bunch of money on something the person will probably not get much use of or I give them a gift card and feel like all I did was waste time.

3. I stress out over what to get the person and can't think of any good gift, so I don't give them a gift and then I feel like s**t for not fulfilling my astrological obligation.


What is up with gift cards? It's like: "Hey, here is some money, but you can only use at store X (which is a complete ripoff, because I can buy the stuff I want for cheaper at store Y)." In the past, I've been in a situation where I gave someone a gift card from the same place for the same amount of money as what that person gave me. Why don't we just give each other money. And if we are gonna give each other money, instead of just giving each other $40, why don't we just give each other nothing and call it even?

Don't even get me started on Valentine's Day. One time, I took a girl to Wendy's on Valentine's Day. It was our last date.




Is this gift giving tradition only around because of NTs? Do other Aspies see this tradition in the same way that I do?

I enjoy gift giving.

and i enjoy gift receiving.

you can give me a present...in fact, my birthday is coming soon anyways....lol

j/k....

i hear what you're saying though, especially with #3....we do that now with my brother-in-law. insead of exchanging xmas gifts, we just kept our money and called it even this year. (but he's still getting me a birthday gift...lol)

and ummm....taking a girl to wendy's on valentines day unless she really really loves wendy's? hmmm. i can see why it was the last date...

I agree with this. For xmas in 2007, my mother and uncle gave eachother $150. I think I was the only one in the house hold at the time, who didn't think that there was a useful purpose for doing that. I mean...you are not getting anything more than you started with anyway.



Valentines day...something I have always hated. Yes, partially because I have never had a valentine. Mainly because, I don't see the point in what giving someone a rose [the stereotypical thing to do] has to do with anything. It's just a flower, you can give flowers to people any day you wish...but I don't see why giving a person the same flower on a specific day, is surpossed to be more "romantic".



I don't know who started the gift giving tradition. Who ever it was...must have had too much spare time .
Yes, I see the tradition in the same way you do...quite a waste of time.

I do like to give gifts but I agree that the pressure to find and afford decent gifts at a given time is a pain. I'd prefer to give gifts when I see something I think someone will like. I often do that but have to be careful that it doesn't come across as weird or depserate. I've had it happen in the past where I've bought a gift for someone because I saw something I thought they'd love and later found out that they'd been telling people I was trying to buy friendship (seriously, it was a very cheap gift and I just thought of that person when I saw it).

With my good friends we'll buy gifts at any time but not usually christmas or birthdays. At these times we tend to spend the money on a night out or a meal together which is much more fun.