A gift is a gift, and the receipt of the gift is the end of the giving. That is the definition of a gift. It is “a thing given willingly to someone without payment” It’s the same as a favor. It’s a gift. Both are, by definition, given freely with no expectation of reciprocation. Period. Otherwise they are transactions, and the terms should be agreed upon by both parties in advance. Sure, most people expect a “Thank You,” and I understand that, but that isn’t the point, or it isn’t a gift. You either give freely or you participate in a transaction.
I saw a comment on a blog post the other day that got me thinking about this. It was something to the effect that if the guy does a “favor” for someone that costs less than $20 (like buying lunch or coffee), he doesn’t expect any sort of reciprocation, but any more than that, and they “owe” him. I didn’t read any more because clearly his definition of favor isn’t the same as mine, and that frustrated me. I understand that people are all different, and that everything is subject to interpretation. But ugh. This is another reason I spend so much time alone. The more I understand people and why they do the things they do, the less I understand people and why they continue to do the things they do, if the things they do make them miserable.
When I was in high school, a friend and I were discussing break-ups. He was saying that when a relationship ends, he doesn’t automatically return gifts that his ex had given him, because “hey, it’s a nice shirt!” I loved that line of thinking and adopted it for myself. A gift is a gift. I thought that was something most people learned about when they’re little kids.
Give gift + other person accepts gift = gift is not yours anymore.
This is not a universal truth. I just think it should be, because duh.
On a similar note, if a person clearly states that he or she does NOT want a gift, and then the person is given a gift and does not accept the gift, that gift still belongs to the person who offered it. Most people accept gifts out of obligation, though. They don’t want to “be mean” so they take the bullshit with a smile and say “thank you.”
WHAT THE FUCK?!?!?!? What did you just teach people about how to treat you? Why are people such liars? This drives me crazy – especially when it happens during a particular occasion when the person had made it perfectly clear well in advance that he or she did not want gifts. There’s usually some asshole who decides that his or her desires trump that of the other person and gives the person a gift anyway. I have seen this happen more than a few times. If the receiver is honest, the person who gave the unwanted gift usually gets all pissed off that the person WHO DIDN’T WANT ANY FUCKING GIFTS had the audacity to NOT LOVE IT. Most of the time, the person feigns gratitude and secretly seethes. Because they want to be “nice” and “don’t want to cause trouble” even though they were just blatantly disrespected and now feel like shit, themselves.
It’s a rookie mistake, at best, but most likely it’s a dick move. When I was married I was very young and very stupid. So was my husband. We cared about each other – we really did! But I constantly gave him what I wanted and he constantly gave me what he wanted. And we hated each other within a very short period of time. It didn’t dawn on us to find out what each other wanted and give that. Needless to say, we were both really fucking miserable. Rookie mistake.
If we’d been aware of what we were doing and did it anyway, that would have been a dick move. We just didn’t know what the hell we were doing. I see people doing that all of the time. Sometimes they know that what they’re doing is not what the other person wants. But they think it’s what the other person SHOULD want, so they go on, not giving a shit about the other person that they claim to care for.
The thing is, people being dicks and doing shitty things doesn’t bother me as much as the people who put up with it. For some reason, people tend to confide in me. I hear them bitch and bitch and yet, if they spoke up even one time to the person they’re upset with, the problem would most likely end.
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