Every day, people are disappointed with the gifts they receive or with the reaction of the person they gave a gift to. Sometimes, they are mildly disappointed, and other times, they are more devastated. Sometimes, they are sadly disappointed, and other times, angry. They may think, “If he really loved me, he would know what I want without my having to tell him.” On the other hand, people who give gifts are often disappointed with the reaction of the person they are giving it to. “They didn’t really like it; they are just pretending.” They may feel hopeless about ever getting it right.
Despite all of this pain and disappointment, we persist, unfailingly pursuing the perfect gift that is exactly what I was hoping for but never even hinted at. Out of frustration and fear of yet another disappointment, we may resort to dropping hints. The obviousness of the hint given reflects the degree of confidence we have in our loved ones. We give tiny, subtle hints to the people we think really love us and are close to getting it right, and we email links to the exact gift we want to everyone else. In the end, no matter how well the gift matches our secret desires, no matter how subtle the hint we had to give, somehow, it is never enough. No matter how superlative the gift is, we often don’t feel quite satiated and rarely feel loved in just the way we hoped.
The desire to be perfectly loved without having to verbalize our needs is an infantile desire. Being in our mothers’ uterus is the last experience we have of being perfectly loved without having to use words to express our needs. The womb provides for our every need, and we don’t have to do a thing. We are never alone, never hungry, the temperature is always just right, and we are constantly held in a soothing amniotic bath. We don’t even have to be aware that we have a need; still, our mothers magically provide for us. I think one of the reasons that infants cry when they emerge from the birth canal is that they are forcefully evicted from the Garden of Eden and flooded with the reality of unmet needs for the first time. We are abruptly ejected from the soothing uterine-holding environment and placed on an exam table alone for the first time. While it was warm before, now it’s cold, and while it was dark before, now there are bright lights. On top of everything else, we often experience hunger for the first time. We don’t have language, so we wail to get someone to understand what we need.
The vulnerability of receiving a gift evokes our earliest experiences of being dependent on imperfect means to communicate our needs. Our desire to have a loved one understand precisely what gift we want without having to speak harkens back to the intrauterine Eden where we began our lives. The powerful disappointment we feel when our loved ones miss the mark replicates the birth trauma of being thrust into the world without an adequate means to communicate our needs effectively and having to rely on our caregivers to figure it out and get it right.
While it is disappointing to learn that the perfect gift is never coming, there are certainly things you can do to have a more satisfying experience receiving and giving gifts. As the person receiving a gift, I suggest you start by understanding that you are setting yourself up for disappointment if you passively sit back and hope that your loved one will magically get it right this year. If receiving the perfect gift is an idea you have difficulty letting go of, try reviewing how many times you have hoped that would happen and how that worked out for you. There are ways you can learn how to communicate your hopes and desires to your loved ones without directly asking for the specific gift you hope for. For example, I’ve been doing more baking in semi-retirement, and I would like a stand mixer for my upcoming birthday. Doing the research myself and sending my wife the link to the mixer I want will almost certainly get me just what I want, but that will not likely be very effective in helping me feel known, cared for, and loved by my wife. Instead, I can talk with my wife about how much I have enjoyed baking recently and trust that she wants to get it right with me and is likely listening carefully for hints about what I might like.
A wise woman once told her partner that they would have more sex in their relationship if he thought of foreplay as something that begins the moment they wake up. For the person giving a gift, it’s helpful to give yourself a lot of time to listen and watch carefully for signs of what your loved one might like. What does she look at when you browse in stores? What catches her eye when she is browsing a catalog? What does she wistfully talk about with you in quiet moments? I keep a file all year long with things like this I hear from my wife and I often have a gift in mind months before her birthday or a holiday.
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