Children under the age of twelve love opening brightly-wrapped packages on their birthdays; for reasonably evolved adults, it's a different matter. Is someone who earns $346,000 per year excited to open something "precious" on her birthday? Yes, if it's a $347,000 Burmese star sapphire. Otherwise, probably not.
As we age, the Benjamin Button phenomenon kicks in and when receiving gifts we start to say the sort of snappish things teens utter with such aplomb: "Do you still have the receipt?" and "I'd rather have had the money." When you've not slept with someone in four years or have put them through medical school only to see them decide not to practice, such sentiments flow easily.
In the flush of youth, nothing quickens the pulse like a surprise birthday visit with friends to Six Flags, a ball game, or even a state park. "You're going to Chuck E. Cheese, drinking soda, and staying up past 8:30," packs a hell of a wallop when you're six. For the middle-aged and worse off, however, joy is found in what one doesn't have to do.
I learned this on my last birthday when my wife gave me the best gift of my life. For the next twelve months, I am excused from: all barbecues at my sister-in-law's house and subsequent invitations to join her and her enthusiastic co-workers for a night of karaoke, family reunions (on either side), pretending to be culinarily adventurous by sampling exotic dishes in Chinese restaurants (I am instead allowed to order sweet and sour pork and a Coke), attending parent-teacher conferences in which we are lambasted for our teenaged daughter's slothful attitude, answering the telephone, dancing in public, or reading our daughter's report cards.
What's so special about this gift is the thought that went into it: mine. Contemplating which facets of my existence I loathe (actually brainstorming on a cocktail napkin at a family reunion) was phenomenally cleansing, equivalent to jamming two good-sized pellets of wasabi deep into my nostrils.
Why race fruitlessly all over town prior to your wife's birthday before proudly unveiling her "big" gift: something she admired in a store window that very morning? Just cut to the chase and ask her what she doesn't want.
What my spouse turns out not to want this year is my reciting the story of how I removed all electric appliances from my apartment (including the refrigerator) sixteen years ago, bolted the door, studied twenty-four hours a day for five weeks, and consequently received the highest LSAT score ever recorded in northwestern Arizona. Apparently, she wishes me not to share this tale any time, anywhere, or with anyone (including, and especially, her) during the coming year.
Her second present has proved more problematic: she has requested a staggered series of "chits" allowing her to abstain from sexual relations at times when she is tired, irritable, ill or otherwise unmotivated, with the caveat (and she claims this is her "big" gift) that there be no residual anger, resentment, or retaliation on my part. Obviously, it is vexing to bestow such a gift with full-hearted loving tenderness, but I must confess she seemed euphoric to receive it.
Negative gifting, as we've come to call it, is a delicate process and must not be abused. It is tempting to pass the afternoon on the cramped boat belonging to your wife's boss and then to state, "I'd like never do that again for next year's birthday present," but is this a gift you truly value?
Seeing your husband emerge from the bedroom in a suit which he purchased many years earlier to celebrate passing the bar (with extraordinarily high marks) and snidely observing, "What I'd really love for my birthday is to never see you don that ridiculously tight garment in public again," is an unwise choice of a gift as well as profoundly hurtful.
So, too, is belittling a previous year's gift by requesting its absence in the future. For example: "You will make me exceedingly happy by never again "secretly" buying me a crappy box of Godiva chocolates from Bloomingdale's on the morning of my birthday while I am in the store" is not so much a wish as a taunt.
Do not, under any circumstances, make gifts after erring. Kobe Bryant's purchasing a four-million-dollar ring for his wife shortly after his arraignment on rape charges springs to mind. Proffering the gift that you will not paint the study and living room windows firmly shut in the future having just accidentally done so will have negative repercussions. Promising to properly record the Super Bowl for your husband's birthday will only draw attention to your complete inability to do so this year despite having been left explicit, printed instructions which a chimpanzee could have followed.
Know your limits, try to understand the desires (no matter how warped) of your partner, don't be vindictive, and negative giving turns out to be the gift that keeps on giving. My wife's presently fielding an angry phone call from our daughter's teacher and I've never been happier. In fact, I've asked for the same thing next year and for the first time in ages, I'm looking forward to my present.
