It can be low effort, passive-aggressive, insulting or derogatory towards your convictions.
In middle school, there was this one super unpopular girl that gifted me acne medication for Christmas… Unprompted. We weren’t even friends and yes, I had acne problems like most teens did.
I never bullied anyone in my life before and since, but I did that year… This was why she was so unpopular. The year after, she called 1 of the 2 only black kids the N word, got her ass kicked and either removed or expelled from school.
I have no idea why anyone would go around picking fights, especially with no friends to begin with. Before anyone asks, no, no mental health issues.
Edit: I also wasnt “popular” and had very little friends too. I mean, it wasnt right either way to turn bully either but I was young
Even negative attention is better than no attention for some. Good chance she had a pretty bad home life, poor girl.
Maybe but none of us saw it, even my friend who eventually became her friend later on and into adulthood… I met her mom at least twice and she was always nice and seemed very attentive, concerned about her daughter.
We also grew up very affluent. They were too.
One of the harshest lessons I’ve ever had to learn, especially as someone who struggled socially growing up, is that some people don’t have any friends for a good reason
one of my buddies got a mtn dew. thats it
another got a playstation gift card, which would have been good but he didnt have a playstation
PTSD on the hoops I had to go through to get the Xbox gift card my kid received one year into Minecraft coins. We don’t have an Xbox, it was… Tricky at the time.
Pizza baking sheets. They didn’t fit in my oven.
A paella pan. I don’t like paella.
A coffee grinder. It just doesn’t grind coffee beans to the right size.
A random Italian cookbook. I have a chefs degree. I’m well down with basic Italian cooking.
See, I cook every day. Twice. And on occasion I love to cook for friends but that also means I’m over poor quality cooking stuff. I’ll buy my own gear. Most people think they do me a favour but I just have useless stuff piling up over the years. I’m grateful to get gifts but last year I just told people right a way that if they want to give me cooking related gifts I would be equally happy with some special sort of salt of some fun ingredients to cook with. Those things don’t last as long but it would make for a much better gift for a food enthousiast.
same. Don’t buy me electronics. I’m too much of a snob to use what you bought. Either stick to the Christmas wish list we all agreed on, or keep the receipt.
All the computer mice, headphones, and keyboards…
The connector cable it comes with will spend 10,000x as much time in my hand than the item you intended to give me.
Yeah, it gets that way when people know something major you do. The amount of lame chemistry shirts and such is far too high.
I know they mean well, and I definitely appreciate it. But it does get a bit old.
I was deployed and got a box from my home unit that was basically just trash. I think it was supposed to be funny, but it was just a lot of scrap paper thrown into a box. Nothing written on them that was for me. Nothing to signal anything. Just a big box of trash that could have been nothing more than the recycling bin upended into it.
That was pretty heartbreaking.
Did you ever talk about it with them? Definitely sounds like an inconsiderate joke. Flabbergasting that they managed to follow through enough to get it posted to you.
I had an aunt and uncle who, when I was a kid maybe 12, were not well off. They got my brother and I each this toyset that was like make pretend welding. It had a hand tool that, if I remember, let you weld with this soft plastic to make things with the parts in the kit.
It also had a chamber near the nozzle that spun and contained something that made a bunch of sparks.
Well… The thing kept zapping and burning me. Kinda hurt. So, being 12, I complained about it.
And of course, I was an ingrate for not liking the toy they could afford instead of a Lego set or something. The worst of it was I got what my parents meant, my aunt and uncle were kind of ashamed. But it burned me.
Hell I thought it was really cool, and even said so, but I couldn’t keep playing with it due to, you know, my hand being red and kinda cut up.
Just bad times all around.
And no, no one suggested put a glove on, and it did not come with one.
Not me, but my wife.
She receives an envelope from her grandmother, oh cool, money!
She opened it and it was empty. Okay, no fuss she probably forgot to fill one when making all of them for the family. A week later, she told her grandma it was empty. Her grandma replied “No! There’s no way it was empty, your mistaken.” This is par for the course. She ignores my wife all the time and talks down to her.So an empty envelope is the worst I’ve seen.
Reminds me that my aunt gave me 100$ in a box but claimed I threw it out…
When I was younger and foolish, I agreed to help my boss feel a staffing void for a month and a half, which involved at least 20 hours of extra work. I was on salary, so of course it was unpaid overtime. My boss gave me a bonus of $50. That alone is kind of messed up, but my boss should have given me a raise, because it was the end of the year and that’s when raises ought to be given, and instead of giving me a raise they gave me that $50 bonus.
I took the money, but I immediately lost all respect for my boss and stopped caring about that job. It was a good lesson, though. Don’t work unpaid overtime, and expect your boss to shaft you, because they can take home the money that ought to be going into your wallet, if you let them.
About 20 years ago
I went to my family Christmas with my then-partner. I got a Grinch onesie from my family
We then attended my partner’s family Christmas where basically the entire living room was stuffed with presents for the kids (my partner and their siblings). My then-partner complained about how the siblings all got more $$ worth of presents. I pointed out that I got a pair of pjs for Christmas. The reply: “it’s not about the dollar amount, it’s just they got more than me” (paraphrased)
I hated that present. A fucking onesie? It was such a disappointing present, and for a long time I used it as an example for questions just like this
I kept it and wore it. Eventually I lost the bitterness and started to cherish it even. Which is why I still wear it regularly this time of year! It’s quite warm… plus, it has pockets!
Grinch tax:
On the behalf of Lemmy. We appreciate you paying the Grinch tax.
That’s a cool onesie
They say once you go Grinch you’ll never go back.
I received a framed picture of my parents, from my parents. They said it was because I didn’t have a picture of them hung up in my house.
Did you hang it up?
I think the only place to put it is on the floor behind the toilet.
That’s kind of hilarious. 😆
…I dunno, I actually think it’s kinda sweet. Something bonus might’ve been nice though haha.
My sister gifted me the third book of a fantasy trilogy series once.
I never read or got the first two books.Also, when I was little, my grandma (who hated me with passion) bought me a pink bike just to piss me off, because she thought a boy wouldn’t ever like that color. I rode that bike until I was too tall to use it and every time she saw me enjoying that thing she was furious. :)
The propensity for you and your grandma to both act out of spite for one another is impressively high. Its good to have proof you’re related
Oh, you’re mistaken. I enjoyed that bike because it was a good bike. It just wasn’t “boy-colored”, but I didn’t mind.
Gendered colours are stupid anyway.
Exactly, and I was way too young to actually care about colors anyway.
Especially when you consider the arbitriness of it. Pink used to be the color for baby boys.
Yeah, but surely you knew how she’d react if you rode it in front of her
Dude, I was a child. I didn’t even have the mental capacity to spite my own grandma. I saw a cool bike, didn’t mind the color and rode it, that’s it.
Psychoanalyzing people on the internet is stupid.
No! You will take the judgement I gave you to your grave!
She always called me “the bastard” because I had a different father than my sisters.
That was enough of a reason to hate me, I guess. 🤷It was definitely intentional of her to gift me a “girls” bike and she didn’t expect me to actually like it.
She also pulled stunts like gifting me and my sisters money on Christmas, but I got 10€ and they got 50€ each. My mum always equally split the whole money afterwards.
“Oh, by the way grandma, I’m wearing the dress you bought me too.”
If it was Ender’s Game, you might be better off starting with book two…
For their sake i hope it wasn’t, Ender’s Game is possibly the greatest example of deservedly famous book 1 and equally deservedly forgotten rest of the series.
My grandma once gifted me volume 21 of a manga I didn’t even own a single volume of. All she knew was that I like that japanese comic thing so she bought a random one at the book store.
Too small clothes so I’d be excited to go on a diet and lose weight… as an already very sick underweight teen with an eating disorder who wasn’t a wize zero “but you’ll get there”
Paulo Cohelo’s garbage books to “help me with my constant depression that keeps bringing everyone down and you like books, no?”
Stuffed animal toy thay was first intended for a baby shower but the mom didn’t want it so “why should it go to waste if you can have it as a birthday present”
Plastic surgery offering as a sweet sixteen present “so you can feel beautiful”
Professional acne treatment (Accutane) as a birthday present because “Oh you poor thing need it”
A used and stained old yellow blouse “because it will make you look happier” I hate yellow.
And the list goes on lol. That was growing up and it is one of the many reasons why I am no contact with all of those people.
Now as an independent adult in a stable loving relaionship surrounded by nice genuine friends, I actually get very thoughtful and beautiful gifts. Some expensive, some with no monetary cost.
Interesting glimpses into a fucked up childhood via presents. Good for you that these times are over.
Gift certificate to a tanning salon when I was a Goth kid.
that’s legit funny
One time my roommate gave me a welding starter set cuz he wanted to learn how to weld LOL.
I got my sister a graphics card because I wanted to play Sims on her machine.
Knew that he wouldn’t persevere with it - very forward-thinking!
Motivational calendar…
Thanks mom
