Gifts can be a real pain. No matter how much joy I find in discovering an ideal object, wrapping it, and presenting it for unwrapping, a gift is always inevitably tied with obligation and assumption. And extra long ribbons curls don’t make a difference.
I learned at an early age, after years of exchanging Christmas gifts with my giant family, that the ability to feign a genuine smile at a pair of gold-toed socks can save an entire holiday. But when it comes to a significant other, faking it can be a lot more complicated.
A bad gift isn’t a big deal, and when you can both find the comedy in something like handerpants, it’s an ice-breaker especially for couples new to the gift-giving thing. Until it lasts through a year or more, or if the gifts become increasingly more awful. Then you’ve got a half a dozen bad gifts, and a dude who can’t take hints. Ice-breaker, meet deal-breaker.
Call me crazy, old-fashioned, whatever, but by a certain point in a relationship, a guy should know what I like. Not that he has to read my mind or do anything borderline stalker-ish to find out. But if I’ve gone through numerous holidays with a single guy, that means I like him. Which means I’ll talk about and share what else I like: music, books, French New Wave auteurs. And if he’s the awesome guy I think he is, then he will have been listening to me. A bad gift, correction: multiple bad gifts tells me he either hasn’t been listening, or he doesn’t care about what I’ve said.
I’m not talking about bad taste, here, which is subjective and always forgivable when it relates to retail. But thoughtlessness? That won’t fly. Almost every offering I’ve taken from the bad gift tree has ended up rotting the relationship that planted it. Even in situations where we discussed the topic beforehand, placed conservative caps on spending, and gave one another suggestions. Any time I’ve opened a gift so laughably incongruent with my personality and wondered “What kind of girl does he think I am”, I’ll next wonder, “What kind of guy is he?”
The truth is, a bad gift can signal a lot more than off-color taste or ears that need cleaning. Like an intentional – not to forget cowardly – way of cuing someone in to their own indifference, without saying it outright. I’ve even noticed this type of gift added to this season’s guides. Not to say that a bad gift will always mean a breakup is next. But in any case, there’s no reason to put with that tacky robe, or the guy who gave it to you – for the second Christmas in a row.
And just to know that you’re not the only one who got it bad this year, check out this website.
Bad Santa image via
