rocksalive replied to your post “Ok, question: Am I the only weirdo on the planet who high-key hates...”
I don't know if this is your problem but I do have trouble w the performance of pretending to love whatever makeup/glitter/other-thing-I-hate that I got from some relative who barely knows me
This is a significant part of the problem, yes. Other problems include:
Being asked what I want for a gift and, upon answering, being pressured into asking for something else (common when I ask for a practical gift rather than a “fun” one)
Being asked what I want for a gift and then being given something else because the giver doesn’t approve of the requested gift (e.g., I once asked my grandmother for the first book in a series, and she bought me the fourth book in a different series by the same author because she refuses to buy paperbacks)
Being pressured into asking for gifts that my family members prefer to purchase (the reason I asked that grandmother for a book in the first place - she’ll only buy [hardcover] books and clothes)
Being pressured into helping my family members achieve specific price points for my gift (typically higher than whatever I wanted)
Being shamed for asking for one expensive item because everyone should be able to get me a separate gift (giving money, even in contribution to a larger gift, is for some reason Extremely Frowned Upon in my family)
Being given gifts that feature something my family has discerned I like without interrogating whether I would actually like the gift itself (aka People Buy Me Anything That Has A Bird On It)
Being given stock gifts (e.g., my uncle used to buy all the girls in the family Victoria’s Secret body lotion until last year when he announced that he wasn’t going to give gifts any more - THANK YOU, UNCLE)
And my favorite: being “given” gifts that the giver actually intends for themselves (no joke, my dad once “gave” me an Xbox 360 because he wanted an Xbox 360, and that was not an isolated incident)
Gift-giving holidays are generally just a massive reminder of how little my family bothers to get to know me (and how much they like to pretend to know me). I would honestly prefer receiving nothing at all.
