It can be low effort, passive-aggressive, insulting or derogatory towards your convictions.
A broken propeller toy wrapped in a ripped up plastic grocery bag.
I once got a picture of a really cool present from my dad, which he said was in the mail. Never got the present.
Maybe it got “porch pirated”. I thought I was immune from that until my things started disappearing.
Pizza baking sheets. They didn’t fit in my oven.
A paella pan. I don’t like paella.
A coffee grinder. It just doesn’t grind coffee beans to the right size.
A random Italian cookbook. I have a chefs degree. I’m well down with basic Italian cooking.
See, I cook every day. Twice. And on occasion I love to cook for friends but that also means I’m over poor quality cooking stuff. I’ll buy my own gear. Most people think they do me a favour but I just have useless stuff piling up over the years. I’m grateful to get gifts but last year I just told people right a way that if they want to give me cooking related gifts I would be equally happy with some special sort of salt of some fun ingredients to cook with. Those things don’t last as long but it would make for a much better gift for a food enthousiast.
Too small clothes so I’d be excited to go on a diet and lose weight… as an already very sick underweight teen with an eating disorder who wasn’t a wize zero “but you’ll get there”
Paulo Cohelo’s garbage books to “help me with my constant depression that keeps bringing everyone down and you like books, no?”
Stuffed animal toy thay was first intended for a baby shower but the mom didn’t want it so “why should it go to waste if you can have it as a birthday present”
Plastic surgery offering as a sweet sixteen present “so you can feel beautiful”
Professional acne treatment (Accutane) as a birthday present because “Oh you poor thing need it”
A used and stained old yellow blouse “because it will make you look happier” I hate yellow.
And the list goes on lol. That was growing up and it is one of the many reasons why I am no contact with all of those people.
Now as an independent adult in a stable loving relaionship surrounded by nice genuine friends, I actually get very thoughtful and beautiful gifts. Some expensive, some with no monetary cost.
Not the gift itself, but the response.
First of all, even before Christmas I said I’d prefer NO GIFTS at all. Regardless, my dad got me some inkjet HP printer. I thanked him for it, but asked him that we’d return it. I tried to be respectful, but regardless, he got mad at me and didn’t talk with me for like 2 days.
Later he sent me the money for it and asked me to buy something for it and show him what it was. I do not know why I couldn’t just keep it as extra money, but oh well, it had to be spent on something.
I got a refurbished ThinkPad for that. Pretty good device, by far beating value of HP inkjet. I even got it with a 2 year warranty (without extended) like with a new device, while only 1 year is required.My mom knows I’m always buying tools for work (electrician) and computer-related parts/devices. She still has trouble wrapping around the idea that I don’t want (as much as I sincerely do appreciate the gesture) anything in those arenas due to specificity of requirement, that and most things of that nature tend to be expensive. She still buys little random things from Home Depot, like last year she bought this wrist cuff thing with magnets on it. Great idea on paper, but not in the field. At this point she’s getting older so I kinda just humor her.
I was given 30 quarters that had letters and numbers on each one in a black velvet pouch. If you put them in a certain order, it had a message. The quarters went in year order. The message was a Bible passage according to Matthew. It was when Judas was given 30 silver for betraying Jesus.
The context, I told one of our friends that the gifter was trying to get with his wife while he was deployed. He denied and then made me feel like shit to insinuate such a thing. Turns out, it was true.
I still have the quarters so I could give them back some day.
Wasn’t Judas the one who did the denying? So by referencing this isn’t the gifter calling himself Judas and not you?
No, it was Peter who denied Jesus three times. Judas gave Jesus up to the Roman government by kissing him to show them who Jesus was.
Not a Christian, but it was Peter who denied Christ, and Judas betrayed him to the authorities. So in a way, OP is kind of like Judas, if Jesus was a dudebro who liked sleeping with deployed soldiers’ wives and felt crucified if you told on him.
I’ll take being Judas over a dudebro any day!
Definitely
I’ve always been a computer/theatre nerd. When I was a teen my parents bought me a bike. I did not express nor have any interest in a bike, but I’m sure my mom felt I needed to go outside more and spend less time on the computer. A week or two later while upset at me about something else she complained that I haven’t even used my new bike yet.
That sounds a bit petty from you, at least from my POV.
No matter how nerdy you are, going outside is healtht, both physically and mentally. They got you a nice gift, IMO.
Bro upset his parents told him to be healthy and touch grass.
Lenny moment
I didn’t like a gift that demonstrated zero understanding of who I was or what I would have wanted.
There was no attempt to talk to me about going outside more or getting more exercise, I have always been pretty skinny and reasonably healthy, and at no point did I indicate that I didn’t go outside or wasn’t active.
But I’m sure you understand my parents and their motivations better than I do.
Lenny moment.Lenny moment
You’re only making one person look silly, and it’s not them.
Blahaj backhanded moment
They got me something I had no interest in and were upset I wasn’t using it. Ever hear the phrase “it’s the thought that counts”? It demonstrated zero thought into what I would actually be interested in.
It’s like buying a teen a set of knitting needles and being surprised that they didn’t start knitting with them.
Well it might have been a thought about what would be good for you (to their belief), but to be upset that it didn’t just make you want to use seems a but naïve.
Ever hear the saying “Don’t look a gift horse into the mouth”?
It demonstrated plenty of thought.
I know nothing about horses. I won’t look this gift horse in the mouth because I don’t know know what I’m looking at, but I’m also not going to be thrilled with the horse you’ve gifted me that I have no idea what to do with.
In middle school, there was this one super unpopular girl that gifted me acne medication for Christmas… Unprompted. We weren’t even friends and yes, I had acne problems like most teens did.
I never bullied anyone in my life before and since, but I did that year… This was why she was so unpopular. The year after, she called 1 of the 2 only black kids the N word, got her ass kicked and either removed or expelled from school.
I have no idea why anyone would go around picking fights, especially with no friends to begin with. Before anyone asks, no, no mental health issues.
One of the harshest lessons I’ve ever had to learn, especially as someone who struggled socially growing up, is that some people don’t have any friends for a good reason
Even negative attention is better than no attention for some. Good chance she had a pretty bad home life, poor girl.
Maybe but none of us saw it, even my friend who eventually became her friend later on and into adulthood… I met her mom at least twice and she was always nice and seemed very attentive, concerned about her daughter.
We also grew up very affluent. They were too.
I think I only ever received one good present.
Gift certificate to a tanning salon when I was a Goth kid.
Mug from Hotspot, probably. It’s actually pretty great though.
My Dad once gifted me a bazinga shirt. I don’t watch the big bang theory.
One time my roommate gave me a welding starter set cuz he wanted to learn how to weld LOL.
My gran once gave me a toilet brush. The base had penguins floating in blue liquid, but it was ultimately just a cheap toilet brush.
I gave her a beautiful marble maze.
I didn’t bother after that.
XXL pajamas. I’m a medium bordering on small so I was swimming in them.
I think I also got a video game for a console I didn’t have but the gesture was nice.
