Sharing is Overbearing

Scott Hardie | May 26, 2017
I've been trying to figure something out in my personal life. I'd appreciate any advice please, even if you can't read the social cues in these situations without being there. Sorry that this is a little dense; I've tried to summarize only the essential parts.

I was raised to share and to be generous (by one parent anyway; definitely by not the other). To me, part of sharing means giving gifts when it's appropriate and when I can afford to do so, and truly never expecting anything in return, including gratitude. But lately I've been picking up the vibe that I'm doing something wrong. Here are some scenarios.

1) One of our gaming groups meets irregularly throughout the year. Some of them give me gifts on my birthday; some don't. I give everybody the same gift, a Visa gift card. Some react well; others coldly. Am I creating an expectation that people owe me a gift in return, which irritates or worries them, especially if they can't afford it? Some of our birthdays are clustered together on the calendar, so the lack of reciprocity becomes more apparent. I never expect a gift in return, but I don't express that out loud, and even if I did, it's not really up to me. Another possible angle: Kelly pointed out that some of them are uncomfortable to lose certain games that other people play well because it makes them feel unequal, so perhaps the gift-giving and the lack of reciprocity that it creates is worsening the anxiety over inequality among us.

2) Several couples of friends come over to help us move, spending hours packing and lifting heavy items. I buy some cheap pizza at the time, but I also say that I plan to take each of them out to a proper dinner later to show my appreciation. We spend a long day out walking around with one couple, who keep mentioning that they still "owe" us dinner from helping them move the year before (a debt never mentioned prior to this day). As we drive towards the dinner restaurant, I bring up whether to cancel out the "debts" and stop buying each other anything, but due to the combination of exhaustion and focusing on the complicated lane changes, I make the huge mistake of missing the resolution of the conversation. When the waitress asks whether it's one check or two, I panic and forget everything and ask for the one check. I quickly and profusely apologize to my friends, and I call the waitress back to change it to two checks, but my friends won't accept my apologies and refuse to discuss the subject for the rest of the meal or the drive home. Obviously I screwed up. I feel like I should never buy anybody dinner again. (I didn't bother fulfilling my promise to the other couples as a result of this.) Should I stop buying dinners or other thank-you gifts for people when they go out of their way to help me? Or was my failure to listen in the car the only mistake here?

3) Family is coming over for Christmas: Kelly's father, brother, and brother's fiancé. It turns out that the fiancé's family (dad, stepmom, step-grandma) is snowbirding in the keys nearby, so we invite them over for Christmas dinner. I don't want them to sit there empty-handed watching the rest of us exchange gifts, so I buy one gift for each of them (generic inexpensive stuff like bath bomb sets) so that they feel included. The day goes differently than I expected, the rest of us exchange gifts in the morning, and by the time fiancé's family arrives for dinner, their gifts are the only ones left to open. Now it's weird that I'm giving these three strangers gifts while everyone else watches. I try to explain, but it's still weird. What should I have done differently?

4) Kelly and I love going to Disney World. We have treated friends and family to visits to Disney World on four occasions in the past, and it has always gone well except for some tension around planning specific details. We've been saving up to treat two other sets of friends to a day there apiece this fall as big birthday gifts, but now we're doubting that plan. We don't want it to backfire and make anyone uncomfortable. One of the sets of friends is from scenario #1 above. We worry that us splurging on a big expensive gift like that will make them feel inadequate or unequal, or obligated to repay us somehow. Should we give up on this plan? Should we proceed with it but have a conversation about all of this and give them a comfortable opening to decline? (For the record, this plan came about because three of them independently mentioned interest in visiting Disney World with us someday. We know they want to go; we just doubt whether we should pay their way as gifts.)

Thanks for any insight. I really enjoy giving gifts, but I worry that I'm doing it wrong or too much, and I could use some outside perspective.

Aaron Shurtleff | May 27, 2017
I feel like I should respond to this, but I'm as bad at social cues than anyone, so I don't know what I can give for advise.

Firstly, in my experience, there is no good way to express the intention behind "Here's a gift, but I don't expect one in return." People assume you are saying it to be polite, and are hinting at that you do want a gift in return. Or, rarely, they interpret it to mean that you think that they can't or won't reciprocate, and get offended. But, again, I am not the great social butterfly, so it might just be me.

Also from the first, I can't imagine feeling bad about losing certain games because other people play well, so that's also throwing me a little bit. But when I play games, it's more about fun and companionship anyways.

For the second story, I think the only mistake you really made was not listening in the car. I think it's appropriate to want to show appreciation for people helping you out. I suspect that there might be more to this situation, because it makes little sense to me. Not that I think you omitted important information, but maybe there was something else going on that you might not have known about?

In the third case, when things didn't work out, maybe you could have given them the gifts, telling them that you felt that everyone who guests with you for the holidays should get holiday gifts? I don't know. It's tough. I want to say give them the gifts, but don't put them on the spot to have to open them in front of everyone else, maybe?

For the last, I think have the conversation with them might be the best way to go. Obviously, if you knew what caused the uncomfortableness in the first case, you would have a better idea of how to proceed in this one.

I don't know if any of that helps, but that's what I think.

Scott Hardie | June 9, 2017
I really appreciate the advice, Aaron. Being able to see this from another perspective helped me recognize where there might actually be a problem and where I was definitely imagining one.

For the people who I'm worried about feeling unequal in our gaming group, it's not that they dislike losing, it's that they feel like they lack the skills to compete. For some it's a spark of creativity; we try to play a game about drawing or coming up with funny titles and they give up after a few rounds because they feel like a blank slate creatively. For others it's about being uncomfortable with strategy games; they feel like their brain can't do that many calculations at once when there are so many pieces on the board to take into consideration, or something along those lines. They're good sports about it (you and I have known bad sports, people who complain loudly when they dislike a particular game that they're no good at), but i don't want to make them feel bad if I can avoid it. I'd hate to put gift-giving on the list of things where they feel like they can't keep up with everyone.

Everything you said is spot on, especially the part about there being something else that night in the car; the silence on the subject was sudden and out of character. I also don't think one can get away with saying "here's a gift and I don't expect anything in return" because people always seem to assume you must have an ulterior motive or that you're just plain lying. That bugs me in other contexts too, besides gift-giving: I don't have any ulterior motive for being nice to someone, so it doesn't occur to me that they would think that I do, so I miss the signals that they're uncomfortable until it's too late and things have gotten awkward. I'm afraid that the most effective way to avoid this might be to get cynical and assume that everyone will think the worst and that I'm best off not initiating contact with anyone, but that's a sad and lonely way to live. In the interest of avoiding that, I'm trying to get better at reading people, but it doesn't come naturally to me.

Anyway, thank you! I'll keep all of this in mind.