Wishlist

26 May, 2026

I have a complicated relationship with gifts.

I like receiving them and I like giving them, but I'm a bit wary of gifts related to special occasions: birthdays, Christmas... it's sadly been ingrained into me (and in many others, actually) that there are times when you must give someone a present, and that present must have certain qualities. What are those qualities? You cannot know. Guess. If you get it wrong, you're awful and should be ostracized by the whole community. How dare you fuck up a present?¹

I guess this is why I like group presents, so if you fuck up it's a shared burden. It's not like I act so violently when I receive a present I don't like either: at most, I'm mildly annoyed. My mom always complains that she likes "a lot of things" so it's very hard to gift her something she doesn't like. My mom also never ever expresses any wish or desire in her life, so to figure out what she might like you have to analyze a dataset of her previous reactions to received presents (distinguishing them from the fabricated polite reactions) and calculate a deviation small enough to not fuck up the gift completely while not just giving her the same present twice. I've been gifting her mystery novels for years and I fear one day I will repeat myself and I'll pay the consequences when I least expect it.

So you can just solve this with a wishlist, right? Wrong. How dare you wish for anything? Are you asking people to give you free stuff? Are you expecting them to give you presents? How egocentric of you. It's one of those social situations where you just can't win unless all the parties involved take their heads out of their ass, which is easier said than done when everyone's dancing to the same tune. It's tiring.

Personally, I like when people keep a wishlist of any kind, but I'm also annoyed when people just pick something at random from a wishlist. I've received frankly stupid and useless gifts that just took up room in my home and I still appreciated them more than stuff picked at random from a wishlist. Why? Because the intent was different. And I guess that's much easier when there are no expectations attached to an event, you're just happy someone thought you were enough to warrant a gift.

Then there's the "this made me think of you" that shows that person absolutely does not see you the way you are and you're a made up version of yourself in their head, but that's a whole different story and ranges from "harmless" to "offensive". I think a wishlist helps a lot for that: here's a random list of things I'd really enjoy having, pick the one that you think might represent our bond more.

Maybe that's just it: good presents are about a bond to share than a gift to just drop off and go on. I see you want this game, well I played it and loved it, so I want to be the one to gift it to you. I know you'd like to see this movie and I'd love to see it with you, so I'll pay your ticket. I like presents when they're thoughtful of who receives it, but also when they're a bit greedy.

I'm giving you a gift because I want to be with you, and I don't need anything else in return.²

#thoughts