Tuesday, December 29, 2009

The Gift of Nothing

I received many gifts this Christmas. A sweater, some chocolate, some scotch. But the best gift, the absolute best gift I received was a gift from three of my friends.

Nothing.

Three men, three of my buddies, all three of them got me nothing.

And I'm being sincere when I say I appreciate nothing. And the reason why is this;

Nothing necessitates nothing in return.

It reminds me of the scene in Donny Brasco where Al Pacino and Johnny Depp are exchaning gifts. Both work for the same mafia so they basically just give each other handfuls of cash. Never mind this is essentially what happens on Christmas anyway (except there is a loss of efficiency and utility when cash is traded via goods). What I'm talking about is they effectively gave each other nothing.

This is why nothing is the best gift. You are not compelled to get a gift in return. Not only does this save you the hassle and the money, it alleviates you of the guilt or the compunction to get somebody something because they're probably going to get something for you.

I looked at one of my buddies who got me nothing and I said, "hey, thanks for the nothing." And with a sincere face and retort he said, "Hey, no THANK YOU for getting me nothing."

Now in general girls have a hard time understanding this. They seem compelled to get SOMETHING for every one. Can be the most worthless freaking crap trinket on the face of the planet, but they still feel compelled to get their far-removed acquaintences something. And the reason why is they think that if they don't display some kind of action or show some kind of affection for their friends via buying them gifts, their friends are going to somehow think they don't like them anymore.

But men have this unspoken understanding that we basically don't like spending money and our true gift to our true friends is to make it so they don't have to spend money either.

Even on birthdays. I don't know when my dad's birthday is, and he knows mine is sometime in July, but he doesn't know the day. We don't exchange gifts either on birthdays or Christmas and we're fine with that. The true gift is the convenience of not having to worry about it, nor compelling one another to do something about it.

Ergo my fellow junior, deputy, aspiring and otherwise official economists, take it from the Captain. The best thing to give your fellow chum is nothing. Nothing is the greatest gift an economist can give. I wouldn't recommend giving "nothing" to a female loved one, but for the guys nothing is as good as it gets.

10 comments:

  1. Elizabeth11:13 AM

    My husband and I don't exchange gifts for any occasion. I come from a rather large family. Present giving became too much: xmas, birthdays, weddings, in-laws, nephews, nieces, UGH! One year I just stopped giving presents. That was probably over a decade ago and I've been much happier and saner ever since.

    My husband is an only child and the only in-law I have to deal with is his mother. It took some convincing, but she finally agreed to NOT give presents for any occasion. Not even our wedding. No- we are not Jehovah's.

    Thanks Capt for this post! So refreshing to be on the same page with others concerning this issue. What would really be icing on the cake is if I could read a comment from another female reader who happens to also agree.

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  2. Now I am rethinking giving you the hand made gift that I made for, with you specifically in mind. On Saturday, we will see, maybe you will get it and maybe you wont, I don't know what else I would do with it!
    -One of your female friends...!

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  3. I somewhat enjoy the gift giving process until it comes down to the last minute BS rush associated with Christmas time. As someone who usually has all their Christmas taken care of at least 2-3 weeks in advance the last minute stuff comes from this same phenomena you have highlighted here. Inevitably someone gives me a gift that I didn't anticipate and I have to make up an excuse (it's on it's way - Amazon lost it in shipping blah blah) and get them something... otherwise you get the "kicked puppy" look.

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  4. Close family for Christmas and birthday gift giving for friends who host birthday parties (21st, 30th, 40th etc) and that's pretty much it for me. Some people would call that lazy - 'lazy' and 'efficient' are synonyms in my book :)

    Still, that's how it pretty much always was for us - no one except for family gets Christmas gifts and if you did extend it to friends, they'd probably wonder why you did.

    Hope you had a great Christmas Cap'n, and all the best for 2010!

    I'm off to my sister in law's family's beach house Inverloch for new years, it's gonna be warm and wet. ugh.

    I hear you guys have got a tonne of snow?

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  5. Anonymous9:08 PM

    The Captain has a good point about the gift of nothing. This sort of has a Seinfeld sort of aura, but it fits.

    Some other advantages of the gift of nothing:

    a) you don't have to agonize about what to give a buddy,

    b) you don't have to go to the effort of buying it or wrapping it,

    c) you don't have to return a gift from a buddy that you don't want.

    d) by not getting your buddy a gift, you have the money to get your perfect gift.

    A simply amazing concept.

    Why today, I bought myself some new windshield wiper blades, which I wouldn't have been able to do without living according to the "Gift of Nothing" concept.

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  6. Love it Capt! I completely agree with what you said. The worst is my wife insisting on buying me something for Christmas, birthdays, etc. She's a stay at home mom, so I'm buying myself something.

    Good stuff!

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  7. This Gift of Nothing sounds fun, I fully endorse it! Lets try it at once!

    I love this idea and the movie "The Nightmare Before Christmas".

    I only gave gifts to my children for Christmas this year. I wanted to get for others who are adults only because they gave things to me. Not having any money after paying everything I can afford to made it easier to do as little as possible for the adults.

    I usually dislike doing the same thing everyone else is doing just because they are doing it. Makes me feel like a sheep, just part of the herd.

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  8. Anonymous10:31 AM

    ah you see, men aren't suppose to spend money. this is what females in our lives are all about. you see if we men spend all the moneyt then our wives are going to get pissed...

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  9. I have two children and they got me nothing for Christmas. That is a punch in the stomach. Most of my close friends now live far away but when I do get a call or an e-mail from them it is a gift. But when your own children get you nothing, that hurts!

    Danny l. McDaniel
    Lafayette, Indiana

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  10. Women are by nature socialist, it's as simple as that.
    I learned this lesson early. When I was a kid we had an Easter egg hunt. I found two eggs, some kids more, some less. The kids who found none kicked up bloody murder. The women supervising the hunt took all the eggs and distributed two to each kid. I got two that looked like a dog had laid them. Nobody was happy, except the kids who got something for nothing.

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