What’s the Point of Giving Gifts?

I actually have some answers to that rhetorical question

A gift shop is a place that sells things that no one would ever buy for themself. That’s why most of the time, gifts end up being exchanged, or stored in an attic somewhere. So why do we give gifts to each other? To celebrate holidays or birthdays? That answer merely begs the question. Why did we ever assume that buying an object for someone was a good way of celebrating ? After all, I don’t really know what you want, and you don’t really know what I want. Why don’t we just each keep our own money and buy something for ourselves?

We do try to decrease the possibility that a gift will be unwanted, but when we do this, we make gifts indistinguishable from shopping for yourself. We give people something fungible, like cash, or a gift certificate, so they can buy something they choose to buy. That works if the giver is significantly wealthier than the receiver, and the giving is just an excuse to help a friend or relative less fortunate than yourself. But among equals, that kind of “giving“ is superfluous to the point of lunacy. We each hand the other an envelope with $50 in it, then put the money in our respective wallets to replace the money we just took out. Harpo and Chico Marx give each other identical Salamis in Night at the Opera, and the exchange is funny because it is completely pointless.

Sometimes we try to eliminate the possibility of unwanted gifts by creating wish lists, or registries. These merely…