Complex Numbers

You're A Mean One

PROMPT November 29th

Write about gifting! What’s on your list? What do you have your eye on for yourself and what do you want to gift to your family and friends? Homemade or store bought? What was the best gift you ever received?

Yay! An opportunity for me to Grinch out!



Here's the thing about gifting: it's an unnecessary verbing of a word when there's a perfectly good verb form already available.

Here's the thing about giving: I'm weary of it.

Oh, sure, it was fun to get presents when I was a kid, just like with everyone. But now that I'm ancient, and already have enough stuff, it just takes up space. I feel terrible about throwing it out (honestly, I feel terrible about throwing anything out, because even if it wasn't given to me then I remember the joy of the acquisition of it). Look, if there's something that I want that I can afford, I just buy it. If there's something that I want that I can't afford, nobody who is likely to buy me a present can afford it either. Between Amazon, Uber Eats, Instacart and other services, I can have anything I want delivered to my door in a week or less - usually 24 hours or less. Sometimes even half an hour. I want a movie? Instant. Music? On demand. A game? Almost instant download. I truly live in a utopia.

Well, a utopia for me, anyway. The peasants doing the manufacturing, packaging, sorting and delivery might not see it that way, so I'm always on the lookout for signs that La Révolution is finally here

But I digress. Yes, I do take some joy in giving gifts. But I'm absolutely terrible at matching a gift to the recipient. And then I get worried that they'll think that this is because I don't care enough. "How can he not care enough? Am I wrong about us being friends? Maybe I'll just back off." And since I've had a lot of friends go away, I can't help but think that it might be at least partially because I can't figure out a good present for them. Partly I know it's because I'm an antisocial asshole, but the gift thing causes me tremendous anxiety is what I'm saying. And probably contributes to the antisocial thing.

Handmade gifts are nice, but they, too, make me feel bad because I have absolutely no creative talent whatsoever, so I can never, will never be able to reciprocate.

So yeah, what I'm saying is: I have mixed feelings about gifts. I always appreciate the effort. Always. Even if I get a rock. And I try to make the effort, myself; it just always makes me feel inadequate.

That said, if anyone wants to give me GPs or money, I promise not to feel bad about it. Just saying. That's the best gift I ever received: money. It's so useful for so many things, it takes up hardly any space, and hopefully it's not handmade.