I usually hate buying presents for people: usually people buy them for the sake of buying them because some occasion imbued with mystical significance is coming up. My dislike of present-giving is compounded by my distaste for shopping and the absence of an adrenaline rush during the hunt; unlike my sister, I don't enjoy getting gifts for people. And once you open the floodgates, you feel obliged to shower everyone (or at least a lot of people) with your generosity, which multiplies the aforementioned problems.

A good solution on the part of the gift-giver, of course, is for people to get others presents only when they find ones that jump out at them as being suitable for the intended recipient. For example, in 2003 I got Bob this DIY cut-and-fold structure (you cut some cardboard and assemble it into a structure) with his name - "Bob" - on it, for him to occupy himself when he went to Wallaby; a very suitable gift I might add. I suppose ardent gift givers don't do this because suitable gifts would seem to them to jump out from every shelf, and also because it's more convenient to be prompted by the approach of a special occasion - it formalises the whole business of gift-giving.

What the last proposal cannot solve is the issue of the mismatch of preferences, which results in an annual deadweight loss of $4 billion in America (Joel Waldfogel, The Deadweight Loss of Christmas, 1993). Since I have little talent at guessing preferences, the mismatch is probably greater than the 10% measured in the study.

Really infuriating things can also happen (once I got Screwed Up Girl the same thing as someone else, and got really pissed off. No guesses for how this further disposed me towards present buying).

The best thing to do if an occasion is coming up for which people are going to give you presents is, like my No 1 fan (blah blah), to put up a wishlist. Though not many people ended up doing that – I suppose they preferred surprising her.

As for me, whenever people ask me what I want, I tell them nothing. I am a simple man with simple needs, and present buying is a poor proxy for what you're really trying to measure or show (even if subconsciously). That probably means I live in a world which seems heartless and devoid of affection. Pity.