I’m not angry about my bathrobe. Really. I just think of this every time I get out of the shower.
If you are a husband and you (make the mistake of) ask(ing) your wife what she would like for her birthday/Christmas/arbor day - LISTEN TO THE ANSWER.
There are three types of answer you could get:
Oh, I don’t know what I want. Surprise me.
You may think this is the difficult answer, but really she’s leaving things wide open. If you mess up and get something unwanted you can blame it on her for not being more specific. Silently (if you’re lucky) she will blame you for not being telepathic and knowing exactly what she wants anyway.
I don’t want anything.
This is tricker. There is a 90% chance that she is lying. In this case, you’re back to answer #1 - get whatever looks good and cross your fingers. If she IS telling the truth and she doesn’t want anything, she probably won’t be too angry that you got her something anyway. In no cases are you to actually not get her anything.
She may flat out give you a gift suggestion!
She is trying to make it easier on you by not being cute or lying but by flat out saying, “I would like a lightweight bathrobe. The polarfleece one I have that you got me five years ago is so puffy that I feel like I’m could cross the frozen tundra in it. I would like any bathrobe that is NOT puffy and NOT made of polarfleece.”
Or she may tell you, “I would like summer pajamas. Since it is now summer, I would like something comfortable to wear in the evenings when it is hot out.”
Or she may tell you, “I would like a table for my new sewing machine. They can be found at Store X which is located at Place Y.”
You may think she has done you a favor by taking the guesswork out of things. However, by asking this (dangerous) question and getting a specific answer, you have obligated yourself to get what she has asked for. Apparently this is very difficult.
You should not question why she is less than pleased to get a huge, puffy, polarfleece bathrobe (but in a different color!) that is three sizes too big; two long sleeved flannel granny nightgowns; nothing. You should not tell her, “I didn’t know what kind of sewing machine table you wanted so you can go buy it for yourself! Happy Birthday!” This is not gift giving. This is allowing someone to buy something for themself with their own money. We call this “shopping.” When she goes shopping and buys herself a satin bathrobe, you have no right to pout that she didn’t like the one you got her (which she wore for the remainder of the winter in a failed attempt to spare your feelings before she feared the polar fleece was going to swallow her whole.)
Other things not to buy your significant other as a gift:
A children’s movie that she mentioned she planned on getting for the children
Kitchen towels *
Drinking glasses*
A variety of cd’s that you want for yourself that she never sees again **
I will add that my husband is a sweet guy and most of the time he really tries with the whole gift giving thing. It’s just that sometimes he falls so short of the mark that I can’t help but shake my head and wonder.
Please feel free to add your own gift giving advice, particularly from a man’s standpoint!
*Practical gifts are acceptable in the even that they have been specifically requested - I am still happy with my spiffy red wheelbarrow.
** This and the two preceding items were examples of my mother’s experience, so I know I am far from alone.
If you’re out and shopping, and she looks at something once, remember it. If she looks at it twice, remember it and get it as a present.
(if she looks at it three or more times, get it right then. Trust me…you’ll “get it” later. nudge-nudge)
Listen. Of course, this is key in all aspects of any relationship, but we all know that, don’t we? If she mentions a product or a thing that she likes, or her sister/mother/best friend/that skinny bitch from the office has and likes, remember.
5…er, 3) Pay attention. Look at the kind of shoes she prefers, know at least three colors she likes (“I like lime green honey, but everything you’ve gotten me for the last eight years has been lime green!”), know her sizes and styles. Acquaint yourselves with her jewelry so you can get her something she’d like.
Except in extreme circumstances* kitchen or cleaning items are right out.
Don’t get her anything you would want unless you know beyond the shadow of a doubt that she wants it too. The time for buying presents for yourself is not now.
Don’t be afraid to be cheap and sweet. If she likes being pampered, flowers, a card with massage coupons, etc. are just right for smaller gift-giving occasions.
If all else fails, ask her family or friends. And follow their advice.
*extreme, or rather, extenuating circumstances include: she loves to cook and wants more kitchen gadgets, or she has specifically asked for that new hundred-and-four speed blender with the am/fm/GPS in tie-dye fuscia.
Women can stop with the bullshit guessing games and tell us what they want. I’m sorry if that didn’t work for you Solfy, but trust me, we men are not all that stupid.
Oh, and if you tell us you want something, don’t act disappointed when we get it for you instead of something that’s a surprise.
And any person that pulls this
When they really reallyREALLY want a specific present shouldn’t ever be given a present again ever.
Sadly, they’re only available for a short time. Supplies are limited, some restrictions may apply.
Offer invalid in all 50 states, Guam, Puerto Rico and everywhere else except inside my own head.
My husband and I aren’t very romantic in the gift-giving department; we clearly state what we want, the other buys it and wraps it. No guessing games at all (I agree with Justin that the first two answers are bullshit, unless you’re prepared to live with your husband taking you seriously).
I should clarify that I am a category #3 answerer, and Swampwolf nailed it.
LISTEN.
PAY ATTENTION.
If I’m going to make it easy and say specifically what I would like, please do me the favor of listening to my answer. IMHO the whole point of the gift giving thing (which my husband and I tend to avoid - we do a lot of “hey, how about we buy each other a new dining table for Christmas instead of exchanging gifts?”) is that you have thought about the recipient and spent some time procuring a gift that they would like. Telling someone to go get their own birthday present with their own money says very clearly, “I couldn’t be arsed to step into a store for you.” (yeah, that one still stings a little)
Oddly enough, I asked for a bathrobe for my birthday myself this year. Specifically, a seersucker bathrobe to replace the nearly falling apart one I’ve been wearing for a million years. I wonder what will actually appear.
I agree with most of your post Swampwolf, but this one little point - ah ah, no way, no how. Do not, under any circumstances, ever purchase clothes or shoes for your wife/gf/misc other, this goes double for lingerie/underwear.
Unless you are a metrosexual of the absolute highest order, whatever you buy for her in the clothing department, will be not her style, not her size (god forbid it is too big :eek: ), or just not quite right.
Also, you really can’t go wrong with a spa certificate or appointment. ANY woman could use a massage now and then, from the most active mom to the busy young gal who doesn’t have a dime to spare to treat herself.
I got an amazing hour of massage for my birthday and it was all I wanted and more. And yes, I said “Honey all I want is a massage from the spa down the street.”
But unfortunately he likes to play the “Don’t get my anything, save your money” game. He honestly thinks I’m going to get him nothing and tuck an extra 50 bucks into the savings account instead. No, I’m now going to have to guess at what you might like. Jerk.
If you have been dragged through every silver shop from Kuta Beach to Kathmandu, if you have watched your significant other barter for silver on beaches throughout SE Asia you can reasonably assume you know what she likes. Rings, bracelets, baubles. When you find yourself in such a place without her, it is touching that you purchase such things as you are certain she would adore were she there.
However when she gets them into her hands only to discover they are not, in fact silver but cheap silver plated crap she may find it difficult to smile through it and be grateful for the thought. Her thought will be that you are first and foremost a cheap bastard!
But, because she loves you dearly and you have other charms she will resist the overpowering urge to slap your forehead and order you to “get smarter you cheap prick, have you learned nothing?”
I still have them. But I don’t wear them.
Also, just because your sister wants it doesn’t mean your girlfriend will like it. It doesn’t work that way. For the last three Christmas’s he has purchased two of whatever she asked for and given the second one to me. Not that I don’t get many other wonderful things meant just for me. It doesn’t change that I don’t want this thing and have to pretend I do as I am opening it in front of his sister, who was just delighted to receive the same item from us, as per her request, mere moments before. This ends this year, mark my words.
I have found that telling my best friend what I would really like, after which she takes my husband aside and, um, suggests strongly to him what to get, and where to get it. The first time this happened I was knocked off my feet by a very pretty emerald ring. Nothing ostentatious or too expensive, but I still get a skip in my heart when I glance down and see it on my hand. Last year she was out of state and unavailable, and I received a heat and massage pad for my back. Cheap and ineffective, and yes, the fact that he went out on his own to buy me a gift matters a lot, but I tried it once, found it more annoying than relaxing, and it went to the local thrift shop.
With a follow-on note that Rule #4 outranks Rule #2. Dad learned the hard way that, just because Mom mentioned (several times!) that she needed new lids for her Revere saucepans, that did NOT mean she wanted them as a present. No, indeedy.
(Of course, she was also the sort that (her own words) “expected to be disappointed”, so make of that what you will.)
The bathrobe thing is fraught, absolutely fraught. Some years ago my husband asked me what I wanted/needed. I decided to be absolutely helpful. “A bathrobe. Long terry, with a waist tie. They have have some at {some store I forget now}, on the left right after you get off the escalator on the second floor.”
What I got: Some polyester granny thing, ugly in the dark, not my color, big ugly flowers, white lace (fake lace) collar that the washing instructions said to detach when it was washed, not my size, and it had the worst static cling issues I’ve ever seen. And it snapped, which is bad when something is the wrong size. Wore it a couple of times and then off to Goodwill, and I’m off to get what I really wanted.
He was hurt. He said he wanted to surprise me. Well hell, that was a surprise all right.
I start at least two threads a year begging for ideas for gifts for my husband.
Last year at Christmas I thought I had the best idea ever: a Sirius radio for his car! Okay, well, maybe it wasn’t the most wonderful gift in the world, but at least in the acceptable range, wouldn’t you say? That man actually returned it. I think he bought himself something else in January, but I forget.
When his birthday rolled around, I thought about buying him a nice kitchen knife (and started a thread for recommendations). The week before his birthday, he suggested I should buy him a knife, but after shopping around on the Internet for a while, he decided he didn’t like anything we could afford. However, he would like a new copper-bottomed pan…
On his birthday (after many hard hours of dragging the children through kitchen stores) I presented him with a beautiful pan that met all his various criteria. He thought it was too big, though he agreed the next size down was too small. So he put it back in the box, thoroughly shopped the Internet, dragged me through all the kitchen stores again…and reluctantly decided to keep the pan I’d bought.
On Father’s Day, I told him to buy himself a gift (which he did, a new computer mouse) and I got him some blueberry scones.
Huh? I really don’t want anything on gift-giving holidays: a card or a donation in my name to a charity gives me as much pleasure most of the time.
Sometimes I do appreciate little gifts because I’m not motivated enough to buy them myself, but most of the time if I want something I will go out and buy it.