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Buying the “Perfect” Gift

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.

Avrum G. Weiss
Hello, Love
4 min readAug 30, 2024

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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…

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