Simplify your gift giving (The Three S’s)
It has come to my attention that women are complicated. While this may not be news to some of you, I’ve been holding out judgement until I really had enough information to draw my own conclusion.
If you’re looking for a lengthy post on why women are challenging, complicated, and difficult, you’re in the wrong place. I’d merely be repeating things that men have been saying for years. That wouldn’t be new, interesting, or valuable (not that my posts normally are). Instead today, we’re going to talk about how to make interactions with women just a little bit easier – most notably gift giving.
Gift buying - XY style
Over the past few years (read: last 26 or so) I’ve been in a relationship with a woman that required exchanging gifts. My mom, sister, and grandmother were always in that bucket and occasionally I was lucky enough to be dating someone I wanted to give a gift to as well. Gift giving, if done well, can be a very rewarding and pleasant experience. If not done well, it can spell the end of a relationship – not usually the cause of the end but often a step in the wrong direction. With so much to gain and so much to lose, gift giving can be a very stressful experience! Let’s simplify…
What you are going to give, depends upon your relationship with the recipient. You should always strive to give a gift that connects something about your own personality with that of the recipient. Think of it like the slice part of a Venn diagram from middle school.
Venn Diagram!
Some recipients are easy to buy for while others are difficult. Some slices are big and some are small, so lets knock out the easy ones:
- Your Mother or Grandmother – Basically, these two women have the largest overlap slice of anyone you know. Not only do they love you unconditionally, anything you like they like. So make this simple. Find something that you think they will like and give it to them ON TIME. Basically you can make a macaroni drawing and they will love it (and did) as long as you deliver it to them on time. Giving a gift on time shows you thought about it, planned in advance, and care. Wouldn’t you want your mom to know you care?
- Your sister or another female family member – Amazingly, these are going to be the most critical of gift recipients. They have the smallest bit of overlap with your diagram, but are also likely not to care much more or less about you either way based on your gift. Certainly not everyone’s relationship is like this, but I’m trying to generalize a bit here. I know my sister loves me. I know I have no freaking idea of what she wants. I know whatever gift I buy she will like but not really love. And most importantly, I know she will love me just as much as she did yesterday, regardless of what gift I give her.
So, with family you essentially get a free pass. Try every time, give each gift on time, and wrap it. Sometimes you’ll score big, sometimes you won’t, but the nice thing about family is that you’ll get another shot soon enough. They don’t go anywhere.
On the other hand, getting a gift for the wife or girlfriend gets much more tricky. Like I said, neither one will likely leave you over a bad gift purchase, but it certainly won’t help your cause. In this case you have to do a lot more than deliver the gift on time. It has to be thoughtful, something they will enjoy, and presented well. You might be able to get away with skipping one of those three if the other two are done very well, but don’t count on it.
When you buy a woman a sweater she’s going to look at it and touch it. Whether or not she likes the pattern or the color is a subjective judgement. She might she might not. It might depend on the mood she’s in, or what she bought last week. Excelling in this scenario is difficult. However she’s also going to judge the feel of the sweater. It might be soft, course, or even prickly. While their are shades of gray here, its pretty objective whether or not its soft. Stick to things that are objectively good and you’ll be well on your way to getting a great gift for that special someone.
Here are my three cardinal guidelines for getting a good gift. Sure they are bit “cliche,” but thats because amazingly after all these years women still love them, even when we try to do something really special, these old standbys often win out.
Soft – Just like sweater example I used above, if you buy her something soft she will love it. Now I’m no genius, but even I can pick out something soft - cashmere, pashmina, whatever. I think girls love things that are soft for the same reason that they love to be buried in warm laundry. Females are very tactile creatures and soft gifts go a long way.
Sweet – This isn’t just any old sweet, this is chocolate. I can not understand it, but for some reason there is a spot in that XX genetic makeup that makes women crave chocolate. Buy them chocolate and they will love you. Buy them good chocolate…well you get the idea.
Shiny – The mother of all gifts. Shiny generally equates to diamonds or some other fancy jewelry. This doesn’t encompass jewelry altogether either. Cute wooden earrings you found at a flea market aren’t shiny. Shiny is objective, cute wooden is not. You really can’t go wrong here. I once bought a girlfriend a really nice, very fashion forward purse and like an idiot put pearl earrings inside. While she liked the purse, once the found the earrings the purse was literally thrown across the room. Everything else didn’t’ matter when you added shiny to the equation. Trust me, shiny works every time.
So thats it. Stick to these simple gift giving rules and you should be okay. Of course there is one caveat here – use your brain! It’s all about finding that slice of the Venn diagram. If your significant other wears leather biking outfits and a spiky dog collar I wouldn’t suggest getting her a frilly pink pashmina, but then again she might like a soft new bike seat. Use your imagination and focus on that slice of the diagram, on time, and well presented. If you can manage that, you’ll never have to spend a night explaining why you thought that the pocket knife was something she would really enjoy…
In: Random · Tagged with: Gift giving, Shiny, Soft, Sweet, Women
