That Perfect Gift

As a man I am genetically incompetent when it comes to giving people gifts, Its not my fault, giving gifts is just not a natural thing for me. I once gave my 1 year old niece some PS3, when she could obviously not work a controller, or for that matter even ownded a PS3! I also gave my brother the same Christmas hampers for 5 years in a row. On his birthday. In September.

I don’t even like receiving gifts, the pain of birthdays and Christmas is just too much, the ‘oh wow I’ve always wanted a extra large T shirt with a wolf printed on it’ line gets hard to make convincing for the 20th time in a row. Unwrapping gifts is an excruciating period when you have to lie to people just so you don’t upset them.  I don’t like it when I have to lie, I like to lie because I want to and because it will get me something or it will be funny for me, not because I want to spare someone’s feelings at their crappy gift, which at the most is useful. Socks are a crap gift but it is a gift I would still want, socks are always welcome but please keep them relatively plain, I don’t want knee high stripy socks.

Flowers are always a good idea and its probably the only thing I can get right. Mothers Day and girls birthdays are pretty much covered, flowers every time! I don’t even have to leave my desk these days just a few click clicks and wham bam postman is delivering an impressive (well apparently according to the internet) bouquet of flowers and I didn’t even have to move. That is probably the only gift I can get right, well that and when I realised you can get normal gift hampers that aren’t Christmas specific, so now if you’re getting a present from me you can bet it will be one of two things…

That is buying for girls though, men buying for men is generally a lot easier. It normally goes something like this,

Man 1: Is it your birthday tomorrow?

Man 2: Yeah It is probably going to go for a few drinks

Man 1: Ah right cool, I’ll buy you a couple pints.

Man 2: cheers

And that’s about it. Occasionally if for some reason the person didn’t go out or I didn’t go out then you have to think of an actual gift. This is fairly easy because if I’m giving someone gifts its probably because I know them quite well. The geeky friend will get Assassin’s Creed 20,000 or whatever the newest game seems to be around that I know he doesn’t have. The Car enthusiast friend will get a spanner. The music lover will get some obscure box set or T shirt. I could go on but well I only have three friends.

When I was a poor student it was even harder to think of presents because of the meagre budget. It’s simple to find an awesome gift if you have £50 to spend but when you have £1.23 and half a bottle of cheap vodka to work with it becomes a lot harder. Charity shops came in very useful then, because lets be honest everyone wants 50 VHS tapes for Christmas. If you’re a girl you can also get away with making something more than a man can, because a home made picture frame with your own face in it, is not appreciated that much when given from one man to another. Girls say home made gifts are made with love and its the thought that counts, but we really no they just didn’t want to spend any money.

A good gift for someone that you don’t really like that much but have to get them something is to do the old charity gifts trick.

Man: I got you a lovely present

Woman: Ooh excited!

Man: Yeah it’s really good, so thoughtful as well. It will make people so happy.

Woman: People? shouldn’t it make me happy?

Man: Oh it will make you happy because you’ll be glad of the help people will be getting in your name

Woman: Yay I will be hap…..Wait helping people in my name?

Man: YEAH! My present to you is me giving a goat to someone who needs it in a poverty stricken country and you get the credit!

Woman: (muttering under breath) What kind of gift is that? I wanted a handbag…

Related posts:

1. Charity Gifts
2. LaToya Jackson – The Lingerie Giving Parent