How To: Giving Boys Presents

It's almost Thanksgiving, which means that it's basically Christmas, so it’s time to finalize your shopping list. Your sisters are easy, as are your parents, but there's always one gift that is stressful: the boy. Giving presents in relationships, whether they're official or "it's complicated" is a bit of a challenge. Giving guys presents is actually really complicated. If you don't think so, you're either wrong, or you’re dating a unicorn

Holidays:

1)      Valentine’s Day

      Valentine’s Day isn’t even a real holiday. He should absolutely buy your presents and take you to dinner, but it’s not a real holiday. Luckily for the half of the relationship with tits, this is the easiest holiday to give a gift for: you are the present. Dress yourself up in something nice and give yourself as a present. Maybe get him a card for sentimental reasons, but in reality, you’re all he really wants anyway. If you don’t do these sort of things, refer to the other holidays for how to proceed.

2)      His birthday

      Birthdays are a little bit trickier than the other holidays. As any girl knows, your birthday is the one day a year you can make everything all about you and no one can say anything about it. Now hopefully your guy doesn’t suck and you’re the only diva in the relationship, and you don’t need to actually obsess over him for a full 24 hours. With that understood, a gift for this day should be personal. This should involve a fair amount of thought and planning and be something that he genuinely wants or needs. Tickets to a concert or a sports game, something useful that you made yourself, or a day trip doing a mutually enjoyable activity are all acceptable. Avoid giving him things that his family can get him.

3)      Christmas

      Christmas is basically like his birthday, except easier: you don’t have to make it super personal. This is the time to order something from his favorite sports team, or related to his favorite hobby. It says “I care enough to know what you like, but it’s casual.” This especially applies if Christmas falls close to the beginning of the relationship and it’s your first gift exchange of being together.

Anniversaries:

1 Month

      You want to buy him a present for your first month anniversary? Don’t do it. You look like a psycho crazy clinger. The most you should do is give him a piece of candy that says “Happy one month. Glad we’ve made it this far.” It’s like kindergarten when all you needed was a mudpie on the playground to convey the fact that you’re destined to be together.

2 Months

      Pretty much the same as one month. Except this time a simple text or acknowledgement of the day is sufficient. Sorry two months, you’re really not that special.

3 months

      In my opinion, months 1-6 are completely irrelevant. But I’m also not a touchy feely person so maybe you like to give more presents than I do. I think a small dinner for three months is a good celebration of “I gave you ¼ of a year, aka like .3% of our  lives and I don’t regret it yet.”

4-5 months

      Ignore these. Still don’t matter. And in case you’re thinking about posting these on Facebook, I promise you no one cares.

6 months

      Okay this one actually matters. You’ve been with someone for half a year, and apparently crushes only last four months so you must actually really like each other. (In case anyone says I don’t write about science, BOOM, there it is.) This is like his birthday, but cut in half plus you (oh look there’s math, where did that come from). Your present should be personalized to him, but incorporate you, but it doesn’t really need to be as nice as a birthday present. A good package would be a CD of your favorite songs together, with mementos of things you’ve done with him, and something that you can do together. Plan an event that he likes to do, but do it together. Go to a game for his favorite sports team, or give him a camera to take pictures of you guys with. This should either be an experience that turns into a memory or something that is long lasting (like your love).

One year

      This is a big one, this one matters. Kind of. I guess. This is when you decorate a cooler and put all of his favorite things inside of it. This is when you give him something that appreciates him, because this is when he should give you things that appreciate you. He should give you jewelry, or a spa day, or just something nice. And you will ensure these presents in the future by returning the favor.

If you’re really stuck and your guy already has everything he could possibly want (or his family will just buy him everything) just give him yourself. Set up a scavenger hunt with you as the end result, or simply just put on a bow on your head and let him unwrap you. Guys generally don’t recognize the amount of effort that has to go into things anyway, so sometimes the best present is what he already has: you.