We all love gifts, and I believe most of us love giving gifts even more than receiving. The general custom of exchanging gifts is present in many cultures, although there’s still space for some differences in the way it’s being done. In Japan for example, it’s not good to give someone a present knowing that that person would not be able to repay this act and give us something in return (because he/she won’t see us for a long time etc). In that situation, such gift is considered as troublesome and unwelcome, because it imposes a responsibility on the person which he/she would not be able to fulfill. Of course noone who wants to make somebody else happy by giving them something expects any gift in return, nevertheless, it’s deeply rooted in the culture that the act of giving somebody something creates this extra responsibility of expressing gratitude in a similar way.
While most of the time gifts are very welcome, it’s very easy to hurt someone’s feelings by giving them something improper. I guess everyone has got an unwanted gift. We can just ignore it and enjoy the good intentions, or, be a little sad that the person who was supposed to know us so well showed some ignorance towards our interests, or we can exchange received unwanted gifts with others. But in general we don’t mind, according to the rule that it’s good intention that matters. Maybe that’s the reason that websites dedicated for creating wishlists never became much popular? Do we bother actually if we mischoose our present? Maybe we want to prove ourselves that we know the person so much that we don’t need any help in choosing what’s best for her/him? Nothing wrong with that, but what if it happens at the expense of dissappointing somebody greatly, or simply just missing the occasion to make somebody really, really happy? Maybe the joy of giving is actually the joy of buying something we think would be suitable for others. Maybe we like to feel in control and to have our own way of measuring what would please our friend the most too much to rely on some things previously pointed out as desired by someone else.
What do you think about modern ways of helping in choosing gifts for others, such as websites for creating wishlists online? Have you ever used one? Do you think it can be helpful in any way?
Comments
When you give a present to someone you care about, you show them that he is someone really special for you. And then it doesn’t really matters what you buy. if you know that person well enough you should be able to buy something that won’t be an unusable crap. I personally avoid buying staff like kitchen or home equipment, I think that a present should be something more. Books, films, jewelry or toys ( especially for kids) are always a better choice in my opinion. They just deliver a great amount of good time, and I don’t think that an iron for example could bring any joy to anybody.
The other thing are wedding gifts. In that case home equipment are the first choice for most of couples. That somehow joins with your last question about websites giving you option of creating gifts list. I’ve never encountered something like that but I think that wedding is a perfect occasion to use such web site. Wedding gifts lists are something normal and using the internet to help is a good idea. Creating such a list when you expect to receive many gifts is natural. Otherwise you may end up with more than one dish set or microwave for example. But nowadays giving gifts for the weddings is not so popular. Most people give money to the newlyweds thinking (truly in my opinion) that they know best what do they need most.
If you want to get a good gift you first need to get to know the person you want to give it to. Everyone is different. We are all individuals and we like different things. Maybe not all of us are different, I am sure that we could group most of us in to some kind of groups with similar likings.
Have you ever used one?
I have never used any website to find the right gift. I decide what gift to buy based on what i know about the particular person.
Do you think it can be helpful in any way?
No... However it could give you the idea of what you could buy for a person that you know nothing about. If that was the case you could use this solution instead.
I'm not going to write about all this near-Christmas crap that surrounds us (I'm not against Christmas, but shopping two weeks ahead), so I'll just tell you about solution we try with group of friends. Instead of buying gifts to each other, we collect small amount of money and together we buy one gift for us all as a group. We try this for the first time this year and we're buying board games which we play during our meetings.
It's also convenient because we're not wasting too much time on shopping.
Only wishlist I have is on Steam and I use it to remember games which I would really like to play. I don't think that someone will buy any of those for me though. But I think that the best gift for someone is what he wishes for, so yeah, those ways to create "wishlists" is great.
The only problem with wishlist I see, is that when few people use this wishlist at the same time, they might buy the same thing. I know that it might happen every time, but when we have only few posibilities of "great gift" then the chances of doubles rises.
But why can't wishlists be one of many sources for getting to know a person better?
Personaly I don't create such list online for any occasion, but I've heard that this is quite popular for wedding gifts. Guests don't need to worry about dubbing presents or giving something which newlyweds don't need.
I prefer traditional ways. But wishlists can be helpful in some cases.
Have you ever used one?
I've never used wishlist.
Do you think it can be helpful in any way?
I think that this approach has advatages and downsides. We can use wishlist if we know little about other person and have no idea what we can buy for her/him. In that case we can safe a lot of time.
Anyway the most important thing is that we remember about the other person.
I'm an impulse buyer when it comes to things under 100$. Over that I have to think about the purchase and wage pros and cons. I don't use online lists tho, no point.
Have you ever used one?
I've never used wishlist.
Do you think it can be helpful in any way?
I think that this approach has advatages and downsides. People can think that we are not creative in any way, which os really bad. On hte other hand we don't have to remember about everything, which is bad as well. So what good can come out of this?