121–130 of 285 posts
What do you do if you genuinely don't want anything? It seems like people don't believe you and keep harassing you asking for what you really want, and then get really frustrated when you keep saying "No, really I don't want anything ". Then they either respect your wishes and don't get anything, but seem to harbor some kind of resentment against you in their heart, or they get some random garbage you don't want and…
What do you do if you genuinely don't want anything? It seems like people don't believe you and keep harassing you asking for what you really want, and then get really frustrated when you keep saying "No, really I don't want anything ". Then they either respect your wishes and don't get anything, but seem to harbor some kind of resentment against you in their heart, or they get some random garbage you don't want and…
Exactly that, people react offended when I say I don't want anything. Nowadays I ask for coffee, or beer. You end up with kilo's of coffee beans, and enough alcohol to get you killed. But, at least it's not more stuff.
Who needs random stuff? Most people don't, so they make up lists and do shopping for each other. It's a waste of time to me.
Kids want stuff, and don't have money, so presents are wonderful and exiting! But why would you want gifts for adults? They even made it a ceremonial obligation at specific moments like birthdays or Christmas,
A spontaneous gift can be fun, someone who knows you well can buy you nice serendipitous gift. But Christmas shopping.... horror! :)
Interesting that they didn't really touch on what I consider the hardest part of buying for someone: domain expertise. If I am known as 'into' something, then the likelihood that someone who isn't also into that same thing will come up with a good gift is shockingly low. I bake bread, for example. A book of 100 bread recipes is basically dead weight to me. I have a friend who is really into knives of various sorts. E…
This person is a robot or something. They're missing the most important component of value of a gift -- that the value of something is higher when it's a gift from a loved one. If I have a wireless charging dock or a rhyming dictionary or an umbrella that I really love, I love it 2x more if it was a gift from my wife and 10x more if it was a gift from my kids.
There's pitfalls with this too. A loved one bought me a genealogy DNA kit - because I do tons of genealogy.
But I also do IT security for a living. DNA databases are a magnet for powerful bad actors and submitting my DNA to one would introduce new risk to me and my family members. This loved one lives in a world where this sort of risk is invisible to them. There's no simple way for me to explain it to them.
Now this DNA kit just sits here, right along with my guilt.
It goes on to claim that the giver cares about the aspects surprise, desirability, materiality, and social responsibility. All well and good: I can see myself fitting to those values the way I can see myself fitting to a horoscope.
But then the receiving side. The receiver is supposed to care about:
- Usefulness: correct.
- Versatility: what do I care about it being able to do multiple things if it's already useful? This is a variant on the first if anything and really not a quality in itself.
- Quality: what do I care? It was free. If it breaks after a single week, I still got value from it. It's not about how much money the person saved me (three years of not having to pay for my own blender versus one week) but that they knew or figured I wanted the product and took the effort of earning the money to buy it for me as well as the buying itself. What does "is it going to last" matter? At best that's a duplicate of "materiality" but the author tried to claim the values or giver and receiver are completely misaligned so that can't be what's meant.
- Whether I asked for it: huh, a gift is much better if I didn't ask for it! Then the giver really thought of something original that I love.
The only correct aspect was usefulness but it failed to mention any other aspects I care about in a gift, two that come to mind are: sustainability and surprise (I feel really fake when someone gives me something I asked them to buy for me; instead I have a construction where my girlfriend collects my wishes over the year(s) and passes those on upon request, then I honestly forget about it and am thrilled to get something I forgot I wanted but that indeed I will love).
> Bonus: Nobody Actually Likes Charity Gifts
I'm sure a friend asked for a donation in their name because they didn't want that. It enabled me to spend quite a bit more on their present as well because I don't mind if some of my own money goes to the cause under another name.
Given all this, the conclusion is not as wrong as I was lead to expect, but it also doesn't help me. It tells me to either not bother at all, or tells me to do what I already do (ask them what they want and consider usefulness). It offers no advice on one of the aforementioned (true) problems: wanting to give experiences to those that (probably) like such a gift without the giving moment being an anti-climax.
Which brings me to...
TL;DR of the article: ask people what they want, make the gift useful to them, or if you can't come up with anything then just give cash to maximize value to the receiver.
Best gift advice I give regularly: Keep a note on your phone (doesn't matter the app Apple Notes, Google Keep, SimpleNote, Drafts, etc) with a header for each person you want to get a gift for. Throughout the year whenever you hear them say "I love X author" or "I'm getting into Y hobby" then add a little note under their name. These can be as simple as "Coconut La Croix is their favorite seltzer flavor and brand" to…
Personally, I haven't implemented this though I know I should... but I came across this idea in Robert Heinleins Double Star as a reference to Farley Files. In essence, Farley was Roosevelts aid and kept files on everyone he met so before meeting them again Roosevelt could cram study and "recall everything about them" like they were a close personal friend. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farley_file For some reason th…
Best gift advice I give regularly: Keep a note on your phone (doesn't matter the app Apple Notes, Google Keep, SimpleNote, Drafts, etc) with a header for each person you want to get a gift for. Throughout the year whenever you hear them say "I love X author" or "I'm getting into Y hobby" then add a little note under their name. These can be as simple as "Coconut La Croix is their favorite seltzer flavor and brand" to…
This means they get stuff they once made an offhand comment about, rather than stuff people think they might like. I once bought a book by a certain author and liked it as a kid), I then got books by that author for the next few years. If I was "getting into Y hobby" I'd probably research my own tools for it, and would hate if someone bought something random, e.g. I'd hate if someone bought me a random RAM module. Ho…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Since I know about knives, I would buy them a knife. If I was an accomplished bread baker, I would give them a couple of loaves each week for a month -- unless I knew they had a dietary issue. Don't buy a book about programming for a programmer; do buy the best book on programming in Python for a kid who shows interest.
You can, but if you consider knives an uninteresting kitchen tool, then you have just given them a $300 knife that they will feel bad about every time they use it open a can of beans. btw: if you do know about knives, please hit me up at my email address and let me pick your brain a bit. [Edit: my email address wasn't in my profile. fixed, but I'll reach out to folks shortly, thanks!].
There are no words for this.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Personally, I haven't implemented this though I know I should... but I came across this idea in Robert Heinleins Double Star as a reference to Farley Files. In essence, Farley was Roosevelts aid and kept files on everyone he met so before meeting them again Roosevelt could cram study and "recall everything about them" like they were a close personal friend. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farley_file For some reason th…
A while back someone posted to HN a tool for creating things just like this. In some places it was derided as “single player Facebook” but I could see it being very helpful for a person who sticks with it
Why not for individuals too?
I like the notion of "single player facebook". It casts Facebook as being an MMO and then that yields clan raids imagery of identity politics and so on. It's damn near perfect!