I was talking to a friend the other day about gifts. I wonder why is it someone spends so much on their girlfriends, and not as much on their regular friends and family. I found it a bit odd, because I would expect that your family and best friends would mean as much as your girlfriend. Is it some sort of cultural value? I mean who put themselves in debt by spending hundreds on jewelry and exotic trips. And in these cases it wasn’t the love of your life or your fiancé, it was just “the girlfriend at the time.” It’s a good thing the boy has savings. It is sweet, especially if you’re on the receiving end. Now I’ve never had a boyfriend during Christmas or my birthday. Yet I wonder if men expect receiving similar amounts of gifts. I think it would, quite frankly, suck for them if I gave them a $40 gift, when they spent hundreds on me.
I was reading Mars and Venus on a Date, a birthday present from a friend. It interestingly said that men like doing things for women, and that women should just graciously receive these gifts and never feel obligated to give anything back. In actuality, when a woman starts trying to do or give more “things” to the man, it makes the man less happy with the relationship. The man will become complacent with the way things are and less interested in putting any effort in the relationship. But on the hand, the more effort a man puts into doings things for women, the more interested he becomes, because he knows that he can make the woman happy. Well it was interesting to think about.
Btw some good advice for men was: whenever you do something a woman feels is wrong… let her vent it out, apologize to her and say you were a dick* for doing or not doing whatever it was. It doesn’t feel good when a woman tells you everything that’s wrong with you, but if you don’t let her get it out then she’s liable make your life hell for weeks.
Well enjoy the holidays.
* You can replace this word with “nadjectives,” there was a whole list in the book, such as inconsiderate, overactive, insensitive, selfish, defensive. These are key words that will calm a girl down.
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2 comments:
"In more ways than one"? What does that... Oh, ew!
Well this is a very easy question to answer. Sorry, this is my first time on your blog. I'm not sure how I got here. I'm a friend of Kenny's?
Anyhow, it's not like courtship gifts are a phenomenon exclusive to humans. It's really common. I think dung beetles give each other balls of shit. Impressive dead prey is a common gift throughout the animal kingdom. And animals don't really give gifts to their "friends", if you could figure out what friends are for animals. Allies? In that case, the alliance is the gift. The gifts between friends are favors, traded and called upon. Friends are all tools for each other.
Anyhow, all gifts, deep down, even if not consciously so, are selfish. You want to be accepted as part of a society that expects you to give gifts, so you give gifts. I have gotten off topic.
In short, the answer is sexual selection. To succeed at sexual reproduction, males must compete against other males who *are* willing to provide gifts. Obviously gift-giving is just one dimension of a very complex phemomenon.
You might point out that, at least with humans, we seem to be talking about culture and not genes, but the principles are the same since we are talking about the culture of reproduction. Males with that cultural trait outperform males without it, and they pass that cultural trait on to their children.
A womb can only be used by one male. That's a very strict limit, and it makes competition much fiercer than in general friendship, where all a potential friend has to lose is a bit of time, and the neurla connections it takes to memorize a name, face, and trivia. And family should be even more obvious -- you don't have to give them mad giftz because there's no rival set of children competing for affection. Your parents (and siblings) have a genetic investment in you already.
But as the western world continues to evolve culturally, things may get wonky. If scientists ever figure out how babies can be brought to term with an artificial womb, gift-giving in courtship might decrease. It might not. Just saying that as science marches on, the rules may change.
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