There is a gray box under my desk, dedicated to items that do not belong on top of it, such as batteries and toys. A portion of the gifts I received from others lives there as well.
Yesterday, because the box was overflowing and finding a bettery had become a struggle, I decided to clear it out. The biggest space-hogs were my toys -- things like Rubik's cubes -- alongside merchandise gifted by friends. The toys I bought for myself never bothered me because I purchased them with the intent to use them. The gifts from friends, however, took up physical space and felt honestly annoying.
While cleaning the bottom of the box, I found some stray building block pieces. Years ago, my roommate bought me a cheap programmer-themed building block set. It lacked proper instructions, the plastic quality was awful, and the finished product looked dreadful. When I had placed it on my desk, our cat Pico knocked it off onto the floor every night, causing numerous pieces to vanish over time.
Might as well throw it out, I thought, tossing it into the trash.
My roommate happened to see this and became deeply upset.
Even though I apologized afterward and got the blocks back from the garbage can, her anger persisted. This incident highlighted a basic gap in our mutual understanding: to me, that set was useless junk, something I would never touch again for the rest of my life; to her, throwing away a gift is as same as disrespect herself. If she were to discard something I had given her, I would certainly feel hurt, so why should she not be allowed to feel angry?
Yet the logic still falls apart for me. She keeps my gifts because they hold genuine value and are worth preserving. The blocks she gave me, by contrast, hold no value at all; they are no different from the unwanted items other friends force upon me. She easily recognizes the gifts from those other friends as garbage, so why can she not acknowledge that her own gift belongs in the same category? I never asked for that building block set in the first place.
Last month, I learned about the concept of the Five Love Languages and ranked Receiving Gifts at the very bottom. The reason is simple: I hate gifts.
I do not have a habit of giving gifts, nor do I enjoy receiving them. For a friend's birthday this year, I let them choose their own present on the day itself. Giving someone a gift should mean giving them something they actually want. Vice versa, the items others give me are always things they assume I will like. In reality, I neither want nor need them; they simply sit in a box, gathering dust.
I also despise receiving bouquets as gifts. They are living plants. Upon receiving one, I feel an obligation to take responsibility and keep it alive. That forces me to spend my own money on pots and soil, or at least prepare water... Yet cut flowers rarely survive long anyway, not to mention that I have a cat at home prone to chewing on plants.
Buying pets as gifts without prior permission is the absolute worst. The giver gets all the satisfaction of buying, completely indifferent to the huge energy required from me to care for the animal. In that sense, it bears a striking similarity to pregnancy and childbirth.
During my childhood, adults frequently forced items onto me -- clothes, jewelry, and things I never requested. Accepting them felt redundant, yet refusing them seemed disrespectful. I invariably ended up trapped with a pile of trash, unable to throw it away or keep it comfortably. What a predicament! Meanwhile, the things I actually desired were almost never given to me. Over time, this birthed my bitterness toward gifts. If you force garbage onto me and still expect a gift in return, there is not a chance.