As much as we all like giving presents to other people, the actual act of buying for people we love/care for is like the extrusion process in manufacturing: input materials are what we think of when thinking of that person; output is what we mold our gift into.
Sounds simple.
It isn’t.
Some people are easy. You know the type: something to make them laugh and something that’s usable/practical. If this ends up being a combo, even better. Done.
Some people are difficult. I’m not saying their personality is difficult. I’m saying their taste is refined and their interests vague. Vague to us, I mean, not to them. Getting/buying a gift for them is not impossible, just time consuming. Difficult. It is paved with insecurities. It is a constant question mark. What’s worse, it makes you question your own taste. As such, it’s frustrating. It’s like a quest for a/the Holy Grail. Every year, couple of times per year...
Am I complaining?
Yes, yes indeed, I am.
It’s a general complaint. Not against anyone specifically, not against anything in particular. It’s just a frustration of wanting to please people you care for, yet feeling like a loser, because you just can’t.
Sometimes what I want to give is so unidentifiable, it’s impossible to find. What’s worse, I have no idea where to start. Add to it my dislike of traversing numerous stores, each one confirming the thought that all stores are just crap. I have an aversion towards pre-packed gifts with a bow. It’s a gift in multiples of hundreds. It says give this to everyone, as if everyone is the same person. They are not. Cookie cutter gifts for cookie cutter husbands, wives, friends, grandfathers, boyfriends…
Gag reflex right now.
A big one.
(Excluded are [grocery] gift baskets.)
Please don’t ask about Internet shopping. That requires premeditated planning. Or forward thinking. Or thinking in advance. I got neither - when it comes to shopping. When it comes to murder, I’m pretty good.
Yet I Google often. Most of it is could have/should have googling. It’s of course accompanied by the inevitable “Next time I’ll…”, even thought I know I won’t. I won’t, I won’t, I won’t.
I just won’t.
Sometimes gifting is with good intentions, but with bad implementation. Let’s take, for example, souvenir shopping. While you’re buying souvenirs, you’re thinking great. It’s not until you’re giving them that you’re thinking cheesy and sometimes inappropriate (or what was I thinking???).
I wish I could bake. If I could bake at all, I’d make everyone a pie. People are specific about their pie preferences.
I like pecan pie.
Sometimes I say peacock pie instead.
If you hear me say it, don’t worry, it’s not my foreign nature, it’s my EASL (English as a Second Language): Easel.
That’s how I weasel myself out of that one…
As for gifting, I got nothing.
At all.
Et al.
