this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2025
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Telling people what you want for your birthday feels weird though.
It feels like either we should be close enough that you can think about my hobbies, interests, and life and come up with something that fits, or we're not close and you get me something fun and generic and it's nice because I didn't expect anything from you.
But the middle ground of being like 'its your birthday and I'm willing to spend an amount of money that I won't really notice on you, but put in no mental effort whatsoever and in fact ask you to put in the mental effort of thinking of an appropriate gift" feels less like gift giving and more like making someone else do all the work so you can check a box.
Begin Rant:
I have found that any 'weird feeling' I have that effectively causes more useless and unnecessary things to be purchased is almost certainly been ingrained in our culture by some ancient and effective advertisement campaign. Giving cash is tacky, giving gift cards shows you care more; They should be able to guess what I want for a gift; Wedding Registers; Anniversary Gift Tiers (year of Paper?); Etc.
I don't even bother checking anymore when I encounter something like that - I just try to recognize it when some POS has mind fucked me by having previously brainwashed one of my ancestors and try to restore sane thought.
Any unease and obligation can be replaced with the certainty that Cash is always welcome and useful, at least for now. That said, if you have some true knowledge, or genuine interesting and an attainable plan then by all means act decisively.
:End Rant