Comment on Is Anon the asshole?

• paultimate14@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  The modern western version of “gifts” is really about pushing over-consumption. If marketers cannot convince you to buy something yourself, they can try to convince someone else to buy it for you.

  I’ve always felt that gifts should be tokens. Symbols of good will, reminders of the relationship. Consumable gifts are great, especially when shared with the giver. Alcohol is great for this, but there’s plenty more you can do. Small, inexpensive art prints or figurines.

  I don’t want someone else to buy me something I woukd want to research myself. My parents gave me a “snow thrower” for Christmas a couple years ago. Its a relatively cheap, Ryobi 40v thing- I do not own anything else that uses that battery ecosystem. My step-dad loves his, and I am it is great for their 2-car driveway, but my driveway can probably fit like 10 cars in it, and I would have rather saved up for something nicer myself. Now i’m in this weird limbo where I feel socially obligated to use it for several years at least before I replace it with something I actually want.

  source

  • luciferofastora@feddit.org ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    My bets friend gifted me a few different bottles of mead to try. We tried them together. One bottle was drained by the end, with him drinking about as much as I did.

    And it was a great evening, spent with a friend I rarely have the chance to. The mead was good (and what’s left of it still is; pacing myself here), but the quality time was something I can’t order online.

    source
  • ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    I’m a school bus driver and I get tips from the kids (really, the parents) at Christmas and the end of the school year, usually in the form of gift cards. It’s still such a weird concept to me, but the thing I truly appreciate is hand-written (by the kids themselves) cards that express their appreciation and affection. It also saves me from having to go to Target (the most common gift card) and find something there that I actually want.

    source
  • historicaldocuments@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    If it came with batteries they make a Ryobi 40v inverter that’s not a bad, but I have a few other things that use those batteries.

    source
  • agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    My sentiment exactly. Every Christmas I get more junk I don’t need, or stuff that I do need, but would have rather researched myself. I hate having a bunch of random knick-knacks and novelty items cluttering up my house, but I also feel guilty getting rid of gifts.

    Don’t buy me gifts, don’t bring me souvenirs, I don’t need more novelty t-shirts.

    source
• brygphilomena@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  My fiance literally sent me the ring she wanted for our engagement.

  Surprises suck, communication rocks!

  source

  • magnetosphere@fedia.io ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Talk with her about it.

    If she paid for the fucking thing, though, that might be a win!

    source
• prime_number_314159@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  There are plenty of kinds of surprise that can be wonderful in the right context. Perhaps easiest is when someone tells you they want/would like something, you keep an eye out for opportunities, and surprise them when it comes around. (My wife wanted to see a comedian. I subscribed to their newsletter, and then got (refundable) tickets when they were performing near us, years later.) There can also be things that you are confident someone else will like, which they don’t know exist. (I bought a friend a battery operated pruner after seeing him struggle to keep up with bushes.) Or small things that someone likes (flowers, chocolate, breakfast in bed, depends a lot on what they are into).

  The guitar repair was the worst kind of surprise: something irreversible, which the surprisee clearly knew about, and has chosen not to do at every single opportunity - while the surpriser doesn’t know why they are choosing not to. That’s not respectful, which is the absolute minimum requirement for a surprise to work.

  source

  • Amnesigenic@lemmy.ml ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    For $200 dollars it’s extremely unlikely that anything extensive or irreversible was done, definitely not by an actual professional

    source
• protogen420@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  I don’t understand this insane fixation that society has with gifts being “surprises”, I find to so annoying, sometimes it even ends up being worse than not giving anything at all the gift is genuinely useless.

  One particularly bad case in experience of a surprise gift for me, was when my mom decided to surprise me with a computer as gift, specially since this is a significal finnancial burden, one of which could have been partially relifed by letting me choose and pick parts, but even though we had an agreement to let me pick the parts she just decided randomly to buy a prebuilt instead without notifying me at all, when I was extremely angry at her for this and when I questioned her horrible decision, she said: “I just wanted you to have a happy surprise” and tried to make emotionally guilty trip me when I didn’t show any thankfulness for the gift with: “Why don’t you love me? I do everyrhing for you”

  Why? do people assume that I want a surprise? why is this idea so ingrained into people’s brain that when I ask to simply give tge money one would have spent instead in buying the gift, that is seen somehow as rude, what is so rude about trying make the most out of the money would’ve been spent into a worthless sock I didn’t ask nor need?

  source