Question mainly for lady Dopers, of course, but men welcome to chime in as well:
There’s a whole Facebook meme about Admiral Ackbar from Star Wars (“It’s a trap!”) along with the heading/caption of “when your GF/wife tells you she doesn’t need anything for her birthday/Valentine’s/anniversary/Christmas”. The meme is, “Woe to a man who is naive enough to actually think that she*** doesn’t*** expect or want anything for that day - he will feel her wrath if he doesn’t do something for her that day.”
Obviously, this is a passive-aggressive meme, but how often is it true?
Is it true about 70% of the time that when women say they don’t need anything for those particular commemorative days, that they really mean it, or is it more like 50% (All women are individually different, of course, but just ballparking - how often is this indeed a trap, versus genuinely not needing/expecting gifts or something special for that particular day?)
No idea how true it is but I’ve always take women at the word. If they say they don’t want anything they get nothing and if they don’t like that they can fuck off. Needless to say I’ve lost a couple of girlfriends over the years.
Early in a relationship, if you’re not absolutely sure, I’d err on the side of getting something – maybe a card and candy. Later in a relationship (after a few years), hopefully you’ll have figured out when they really mean it and when they don’t.
It all goes to love languages. Do people feel that the best way to say “I love you” is with gifts, words of affirmation, acts of service, quality time, or physical touch?
Mine is mostly (but not exclusively) quality time, so I don’t prefer gifts. Especially since we are not financially stable and have real needs. What I do like is some indication that Mr. Celtic Knot has put some time and effort into the day. Unless we have a real date planned, (almost never, due to work schedules) I like a card. Not one that has all kinds of embellishments that cost a fortune, but not a generic card that has no relevance to our lives.
Discover your loved one’s love language Read Gary Chapman’s book or look online to find out.
I take my wife at her word. I know she likes a card, and I surprise her randomly every year or two on a non-Valentines Day with flowers, but neither of us was ever interested in that kind of gameplaying (i.e. she has never ever said, “I know that’s what I said, but…”). I also tell her not to bother with my birthday, and she doesn’t, but she knows I want the kids to pay attention to father’s day.
I get my wife flowers delivered to her office. Not because she expects me to but because I want her to feel special as she is typically the only woman in the office to get flowers from her significant other*.
At her last job, the women in the office would get roses indirectly from me because <insert prank story here>.
I stopped doing holidays. I stopped doing birthdays. I stopped doing anniversaries. Mostly at my wife’s request and the pure passage of time. These days if she wants something she asks and other than that I stay out of it.
When I say it I mean it, my (lesbian) partner also says it but doesn’t mean it. She says it because finances are tight and she feels she should. I say it because I didn’t grow up with positivity about such occasions and seriously don’t care.
Gift buying is hard territory for most of us, shifting the pressure to the recipient to ask/tell is downright mean. What am I worth to you in terms of money, effort or time? That can’t be my decision.
There is as much “trap” in the question (spoken or implied) as the answer.
I would like simple acknowledgement and that’s all. I don’t need stuff, I have plenty of that. I don’t like flowers, unless I grow them. I can’t have the candy. I don’t want to go to a restuarant, I’m phobic. Mr.Wrekker knows what I need. Well sometimes he goes overboard on that, buts that’s ok. It’s his way. We don’t play games with me saying one thing and meaning 2 others. I found out long ago games just muddy the water. And I’m not a good game player. I can be read like a book. All you have to do is look at me.
I’m more upset if my kids forget me on my special days.
It’s not just women. A lot of humans aren’t good at communicating. Fuck the question of gift giving, give both of you the gift of learning communication, and perhaps other relationship skills. That’s the gift that keeps on giving.
But these things, birthday, Valentines, anniversary, are not the same.
We’re gonna give each other something on the anniversary or the other one is gonna think there is trouble. It can be a trifle, a mere acknowledgment. Or we can give each other a joint thing that’s big, like a new TV. Note, it’s just one TV I’m talking about. This is our special day together and we’re happy to remember it, however it happens.
There had better be something on my birthday, even though I don’t “need” it. And it doesn’t have to be big. Again, an acknowledgment. Also I traditionally do not work on my birthday and I don’t cook on my birthday. Unless I have to.
V-day not so much. I don’t need/want/demand anything. I usually get something (flowers, jewelry) and it is nice to get it but there would be no blowback if I didn’t get it. I hardly ever get him anything, now that I no longer make the traditional red velvet cake in the shape of a heart (which I used to do when we had kids at home, they loved it).
I’m just enough of an oddball that if I say I don’t want something, and I get something anyway, I might very well be pissed and there would be blowback. (“You never listen to me!”)
We’ve always discussed give giving occasions (birthdays, Christmas/Hanukkah, Valentine’s Day) ahead of time and what we do varies from year to year. She doesn’t really like celebrations very much so we’re always low key. The biggest tradition we have is on each of our birthday weekends we are always right. The other partner doesn’t contradict or challenge any decision made by the birthday boy or girl. It’s a pretty big deal in our household.
Otherwise we just communicate and listen to each other. If she doesn’t want a celebration, there’s no celebration. If she doesn’t want presents, there’s no presents.
If a woman volunteers that she doesn’t want anything, don’t get her anything.
If you ask if she wants something, then tread carefully when interpreting her response. It’s generally considered ill-mannered to elicit a gift from someone. So saying “yes, give me something” is going to be difficult for a lot of people to say.
I’m torn because I’m normally not a gift person and don’t have sentimental attachments to Valentine’s Day and the like. That said, I was a bit disappointed my husband didn’t get me anything yesterday. I bought him some chocolates, which he was happy to eat. Don’t know why it didn’t occur to him that such a simple gesture would make me happy, too. And dude, I just had your baby. Can’t I get some candy or something?!
But I know I only have myself to blame because when he apologized for not giving me anything, I said not to worry about it. :sigh:
I’ve made it a solid policy that if you don’t ask me for something, and something specific at that (or lots of specific somethings for me to pick from - ie a list) then you get nothing at all. I don’t care if it’s your birthday, I don’t care if it’s christmas - no exceptions. No list, no gift.
It’s been a decade and a half since I’ve been in a relationship (:(), but my recollection is that I would just talk to the woman in advance about the plan for the holiday. I also vaguely recall that we mutually agreed that there were probably better nights to go out to eat on than the day everybody else would be going out to eat, so we just went some other day, but I could be wrong about that.
We always discuss things as reciprocal, ie, “are we exchanging gifts for birthdays this year?” I always can think of a several things that we’ve discussed over the past year that would make a good gift, and I always keep an eye out for things online. We just passed our 5th wedding anniversary and since the gifts for 5 years are supposed to be wood we just agreed to that and found gifts for each other along that theme. It was fun.
It probably has more to do with the fact that in the past decade I’ve only interacted with females who were at least one of:
related to me
married to somebody else
a co-worker
a poster on this forum
behind a cash register
Gift shopping is different for everyone. I’m just spectacularly hard to shop for and have absolutely zero confidence in my ability to find things that others will like (and don’t already have).
