It's the thought that counts...

I had a guy who I dated briefly 10 years ago, give me a used airline blanket as a gift one time when he got home from a business trip. I didn't know it at the time, but it was a test. A gold digger test. In his mind, if I got upset or showed any level of disgust for his extremely low effort gift, then that meant I was definitely a gold digger. In his mind, the only women who were NOT gold diggers were women who were happy with zero to low effort gifts. If a woman displayed any level of anger, over anything cheap, she was a gold digger. It's a psychological trap that gets the woman constantly proving to him how she isn't a gold digger by never wanting anything from him.

I fully agree. I would even say thoughtfulness and effort counts more than the actual dollar value spent on the gift (ridiculously cheap gifts on meaningful occasions obviously excluded).

Some of the most beautiful and thoughtful gifts I have ever gotten didn't cost much. A group of my students tracked down a vintage perfume my grandma had used after I had mentioned it in a conversation about how scents can trigger memories. I couldn't remember the name, just how the bottle looked and the scent and it held so many memories for me (my grandma passed away when I was still a child). They not only found out which perfume it was (and that it was unfortunately discontinued years ago), they even tracked down a vintage bottle of it on ebay for $20. I cried when they gave it to me as a surprise at the end of the semester and still have it. A gift like that is infinitely better and more meaningful than a guy buying the first random jewellery he sees for a fortune.

What gifts? Most guys don't even seem to make any kind of gifts anymore

But I agree, a HVM would take the time to think about what you'd enjoy and make it happen.

It's sad how this phrase is used to shame women for wanting more from their partners. The whole point of it was so poor people wouldn't feel bad for not giving expensive gifts while they received them, or mothers when their toddlers gave them incomprehensible scribbles for her birthday. LVMs have co-opted this phrase to excuse them stringing along women for sex. Funny how those same men, will then buy their male friend the perfect gift he always wanted

This is one of the things I actually had to "communicate" about and it went really well. My boyfriend grew up in a family where gifts were from a very specific list that person gave you and, for a bunch of other reasons, just a frustrating experience.

I also know I'm hard to buy gifts for because I don't like clutter and most of my hobbies aren't really stuff-heavy hobbies. And most things I want I just go ahead and buy for myself. (All of which he gets, because he's the exact same way.)

My first birthday and Christmas we were together (pretty close to each other) he got me gifts where I could tell he was trying (and spending a lot of money trying) but just not getting it super right.

So we had a conversation about what sort of things I value (generally, like "your time, experiences, making my life easier for things where if I was doing it for myself I'd do it the more stressful but cheaper way, not things that are so nice they're more work to take care of than they're worth"). He got it after that - and was also a good opportunity to see how he took constructive criticism.

My ex used to buy me things HE wanted. Literally bought me a fountain pen set because he said I have nice writing, then I found out his new thing was watching calligraphy videos on YouTube and the pen set he bought me was recommended by the channel. All made sense why he kept wanting to use it. He just bought himself it through the guise of giving it to me. There were a few instances of things like this. I did everything for that fucking guy too. I now know that that did me no favours.

Omg idk why, but receiving a shitty gift pisses me off so much. Like, I’d rather you gave me nothing instead of literal trash? Wtf.

I think it comes from my childhood when my narc mother used to give me gifts that were actually for her (she would later just take them), or things she got for another occassion (e.g. birthday) and then just repackaged and gave to me 🙁.

As much as I hate receving shitty gifts, it’s an excellent vetting tool in deed.

I was supposed to be happy he brought me grocery store flowers with lilies that are poisonous to cats, after he already poisoned

my cat with lilies once. He “forgot” lilies were poisonous.