Tuesday ramble: gifts

I've thoroughly covered the topic of gifts on this blog. I've covered it in the context of my personal experience and that of some friends, and I've invoked studies and outside perspectives about gift-giving and receiving. Let me rehash all this, in reverse order (you can find the links somewhere on these pages):

Outside perspectives and studies:

• Miss Manners generally writes that one should not ask for a gift or feel entitled to one, and that one should be gracious when receiving a gift. I say "generally" because I'm sure that Miss Manners has, or would, make exceptions for inappropriate gifts. In fact, she definitely has (see: bringing "gifts" to parties where "bring nothing" is requested). Also, gifts are "free," i.e., not given in the spirit of quid pro quo. Giving entitles you to nothing.
• Carolyn Hax recently wrote that she generally agrees with the graciousness concept, times have changed and the act of receiving gifts is no longer free. The fact that material gifts take up space and come at an environmental cost calls for a reconsideration of the way we gift.
• Time did a piece a few years ago on how gifts do not always have the effect intended by the recipient. People often don't like getting particularly grand gifts because they feel like it puts them at an obligation to the giver (see: Miss Manners' point about quid pro quo).
• Yet, there is still a social value to gifts. Sometimes a gift, when done right, is better than a gift certificate.

My personal experience:

• I've received more than my fair share of thoughtful, appropriate, and welcome gifts. These can take the form of a book I'd never have thought to read, but I'm glad someone drew my attention to it, or something someone brought me back from a trip as a sign s(he) was thinking of me. It could be something I didn't know I needed that I ended up using all the time.
• I've clashed with mom over turning down her gifts. There was a disconnect between my circumstances (no basement) and priorities (less crap) and hers (who knows, you might need it some day).
• I clashed with RM over many things, including turning down his gifts, particularly after I'd explicitly asked him not to give them. Even the gifts that were not inappropriate in and of themselves were inappropriate because I had drawn a boundary that included "no gifts."
• I've received gifts that I didn't know what to do with, but weren't worth clashing over. Just like there's a spectrum of social situations where it makes sense to accommodate or compromise rather than clash--accommodating an aggressive talker on a very short flight when you don't have a book anyway is on the opposite end of that spectrum from accommodating an aggressive talker who is living in your house and claiming your time every evening--there's a spectrum that ranges from regular to one-off gift-givers. That said, I hate sending stuff to the landfill, so receiving a gift that I have no use for is almost an anti-gift. In cases where it's something for which I don't want to create more demand (eg, animal products) or that has more intense environmental consequences (toxic chemicals), it's really an anti-gift.

Why bring this all up now? The short answer is, I found myself thanking my coworker for not having gotten me a t-shirt. He'd been to a cat show over the weekend and saw a shirt that made him think of me, but he figured I wasn't really a t-shirt person. I thanked him for not getting the shirt (I'm neither a t-shirt person nor not one, but I definitely have more t-shirts than I know what to do with).

I've also--as I've told you--been on a self-perpetuating decluttering kick. It started out with one area of the house or maybe one category of stuff, and then, one thing led to another and I've managed to get my house to the point where there's barely anything in here that I don't want or need (or think I may not ever need). And I'd really like to keep it that way. In a sense, it's "academic"--it's not like I had clutter spilling over furniture; it was all hidden in corners and storage spaces, or even spare rooms. But there's a feng-shui, spiritual aspect to not having excess stuff around, sapping your emotional energy. It's the converse of what personal finance advisors tell you about deciding whether to buy something: think of the total cost rather than the sticker cost, where the total cost includes the space you'll have to find for that thing and the time you'll spend cleaning it, or, perhaps, the hassle of having one more thing to pack and unpack if or when you move. And the environmental cost, of course (production, disposal). Gifts may not bear a sticker cost, but they do bear those other costs.

So, especially now that I've recycled my electronics and donated my old clothes, furniture, and other stuff, and I can pretty much find everything I want to when I want to, I'm very sensitive to extra stuff. And I'm also at the point where I either have everything I need or I'll quickly go out and buy it, unless the thing I need is something so specific that no gift-giver is going to randomly figure it out. Which brings me back to the RM factor, or what I'll call the arrogance factor of gift-giving.

RM, as you may recall, would get very excited about "surprising" me, and not just in inadvertent, creepy ways or by amazing me with just how annoying he could be. And even from the beginning, I tried to discourage this sort of thing because he was in no position to surprise me: he didn't know me well enough to know what would make for a pleasant surprise. Of course, it didn't occur to him that I wouldn't necessarily be pleasantly surprised, just as it didn't occur to him that he was in no position to get me gifts that I wouldn't dislike. At first, I felt genuinely bad, because he was trying. Then--after I discouraged him--I just got annoyed.

Sometimes it was unquestionable arrogance (he would bring me chocolate candy after I specifically asked him not to bring me chocolate candy). I rewarded his arrogance by ignoring the candy, which, upon my rejection, he placed on the table so as to tempt me subtly. Sometimes it was clueless arrogance, as in the case of the pearl earrings. They were not only inappropriate, but misguided in a really ironic way: he went to the jewelry store and described me to the shopkeeper, who helped him pick out the earrings. It did not occur to him that--even as he and the shopkeeper agreed that the earrings fit my personality perfectly--I might already have a set (or two or three or ten) of pearl earrings. This kind of thing went on and on: he would try to figure me out in a very simplistic way, and--I repeat, despite my asking him to quit giving me gifts--find gifts based on his conclusions. I have a lovely Bohemian crystal displayed on my bookshelf (that a friend brought me from abroad), therefore he should give me a faux Bohemian crystal conference freebie he probably found around the house.

But let me quit piling it on atop RM, because who the f* cares. And let me also point out that any of us may put thought into a gift that may still fall flat. The bigger point is, intelligent gift giving requires a more complex thought process than "Susie likes dogs, so she must want dog paraphernalia." And even if she does like dog paraphernalia, maybe she already has as much as her apartment can hold. This feeds into the even bigger point, made earlier, that gift giving needs to be intelligent in this day and age of small living spaces and environmental awareness. Gone are the days of harmless tchotchkes; in are the days of, everything in your space best have a purpose or a meaning. That means that "no gifts" really means "no gifts." Not to put too fine a point on it, sometimes the best gift is no gift. When that's not an option, the best gift is well-thought out and attuned to the recipient's tastes, circumstances, and values. If you're not in a position to suss those out, the best gift is probably still no gift.