dispatches from TJICistan

I had an interesting conversation a while back where an acquaintance confessed that he wasn’t really good at buying gifts for people – the usual outcome was no gift, a late gift, or a very poor quality gift. The initial reason given was that “he just doesn’t remember, or have time”.

I argued that, to many people all of the time, and to all people some of the time, receiving a decent gift at an appropriate time (birthday, Christmas, an anniversary) is quite important, not for the value of the gift, but because of the signal that a decent gift sends.

Because I’m a huge nerd, I made it into an equation:

A && T && M → G

where:

A == caring, as expressed in paying Attention to recipient’s interests
T == caring, as expressed in Time spent
M == caring, as expressed in Money spent
G == Gift purchased

The corrolary to this, where no gift is purchased, is – by DeMorgan’s Law:

G → A || T || M

which is to say, in a situation where a gift is expected, and no gift, or a laughably insufficient gift is purchased (e.g. a bottle of windex, a gas station gift card, a 2-liter of soda, etc.), there is evidence of either not caring to pay attention, not caring to spend time, or not caring to spend money.

Certain individuals may have particular problems with gift giving that don’t actually indicate failure in the A,T, or M areas, but (a) the recipient – at a conscious or unconscious level – will most likely not respond to special pleading, and will fall back to an instinctual interpretation of lack of gift as lack of caring; (b) I remain unconvinced that special pleading (“I’m a perfectionist, so I find it hard to get a gift”, “I grew up in a Buddhist monastery where giving gifts was bad form”, whatever) really is anything other than an excuse. If one is aware that a gift is expected by the recipient, than saying “I grew up in a Buddhist monastery, so …. um…I find it hard to remember when Christmas is coming”, can be seen as a cop out, or an excuse to cover the reality that there is a deficiency in the A, T, or M areas.

That said, some practical advice:

If you have a problem buying gifts for people – especially people who take time to make or buy gifts for you, you have, whether you realize it or not, a festering problem.

My solution:

• remember that even a C+ grade gift is far far better than no gift, or an F-grade gift. Do not let perfection be the enemy of the good. E.g. do not let your perfectionism screw up your relationships.
• as gift giving season approaches, open a text file and make a list of people who you should give gifts to.
• for each person, write down two interests: wood turning, glassblowing, classical music, cooking, Dora the Explorer, whatever
• execute a strategy:
  • Basic move (good enough!): go to amazon.com and buy a book, DVD, tool or toy that fits into the category
  • Somewhat advanced move: talk to others who share the interest, gather data from them. They can suggest something more appropriate.
  • More advanced move: go to a store where the person shops and ask a staff person for help
  • Very advanced move: buy an experience (tickets to a class, a show, a fancy restaurant that requires reservations far in advance)
  • 733t move: make a basket of related good. This can be relatively simple and cheap (it makes up for low ‘M’ score by demonstrating very high ‘A’ and ‘T’ scores). I once really wowed a GF who was into tea by assembling a gift basket of lots of little tea things: a wicker basket (recycled from a gift I had received), a selection of teas that I picked out, a small decorative tea pot, some artisanal honey, etc.
  • super-733t move (IMO): make something by hand. There’s no signalling of A,T, and M like teaching yourself a skill, starting way ahead of time, purchasing the necessary materials, working for hours, and using your own hands.

Go forth.

Make your friends and family happy.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 20th, 2009 at 9:04 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.