Editor-At-Large: The hard part of relationships: gift-giving

The first gift is the hardest.

Serious questions must be considered. Friends, coworkers must be consulted. Standing in line at Wal-Mart in a fit of panic is almost a given.

The first few months that J.J. and I dated, I had lost actual sleep over what to buy him on that first birthday of our new relationship – my stress compounded by the thoughtfulness of his gift to me that first Christmas we were together: An antique Underwood typewriter in pristine condition, and sitting on the platen was a piece of parchment paper with a type-written note, professing kind but appropriately restrained words of affection.

Perhaps even more meaningful – his trash can was filled with the ink-blotted rejects; typing out that note must’ve taken hours.

“It took me hours,” he confessed sheepishly.

My heart melted.

It was almost as meaningful as the G.I. Joe Hovercraft my Uncle Jeff bought me the Christmas of ‘86, after I’d pleaded to my parents to no avail for the iconic action figures, yet year after year wound up with a gaggle of Cabbage Patch Kids.

You never forget gifts like that.

So how do I, a woman of marginal sentimentality, compete with J.J.’s thoughtfulness?

The best I could do was a wallet.

Brilliant, I thought – we had seen it in a store on Second Street that made accessories from old seat belts, and I thought I saw him admiring it – until sharing the big gift news with a few coworkers.

“A wallet?” sneered columnist Tim Grobaty.

“What are you, his mother?” wondered then-crime reporter Tracy Manzer.

I was sweating.

“Does he like to read?” Grobaty asked to my over-eager nods (“Yes! Yes, he does!”)

I tossed the wallet in the bottom of my desk drawer, grabbed my purse and headed to Wal-Mart for a Kindle, which were all the rage. Apparently anything electronic is a no-brainer for most men, which I didn’t know.

He loved it (and even sent Grobaty a thank-you note).

Buying gifts for significant others, especially early-on, is a veritable minefield. He’s fumbled a few times: there was the loud, skin-tight dress and chunky plastic jewelry a few Christmases ago, to which I couldn’t even muster a fake “I love it!” face.

For the most part, my now-husband is very thoughtful. And every time a gift-giving occasion comes around, I am riddled with self-doubt, scarred by the mockery of my coworkers.

J.J.’s birthday is Tuesday. The pressure is mounting, especially after last year when, with our wedding less than a week away, his birthday was all-but cancelled.

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“I don’t need anything,” he says when I plead for ideas. “I just want to spend time with my family.”

He suggests we go to Disneyland, and he wants a butterscotch pie.

And? What?!

The first gifts may be the hardest – but I’ve discovered it doesn’t get much easier.

It’s true that J.J. really doesn’t need anything. Neither do I, but we all like gifts.

I wonder: How long do you have to be in a relationship before it’s OK to give a wallet?

City editor Melissa Evans can be reached at [email protected].

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