An ode to that “coffee friend”
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Something I'm rather sad about is that highschool kinda beat that attitude out of me. I was a classic nerd, including all the bad attributes that label comes with, but also one really good one: I was really into a number of things. But I learned from hard experience that being super into stuff was lame - being disinterested and too cool for stuff was hip. I internalized that attitude.
Even into adulthood, I occasionally find myself making fun of people for being into specific things. I eventually made myself a rule: if someone really enjoys something that's not hurting anyone, that's an admirable trait. It's easy to obey this rule for things I like: science fiction, fancy beer, programming. It's not too hard to obey this rule for things that I'm not personally into, but are culturally adjacent to me: classical music, literature, skiing, fancy coffee. It's harder for things that are not as cool among my social group. I sometimes have to remind myself that being super into football, nascar, or the bachelorette is just as admirable as being into my things. Un-ironic enthusiasm is one of our best traits as humans, even when directed towards things I don't personally get that excited about.
And so I'll always appreciate that coffee friend. They're lucky enough to have maintained the ability to nerd out about something and I'm glad of it.
I once heard an artist say (can't remember which one), that they loved playing in Europe, since everyone at a festival is there to have fun. While in US, everyone is there to look cool.
However, I very much enjoy the original's post analysis about 'being into things', I think it's just brilliantly exposed !
There was a boy in my class that had difficulties at home and struggled in school (daydreaming instead of focusing etc) and i clearly remember this scene where the teacher mocked him infront of the class saying stuff like "looking out the window again are we, no wonder you're slow and stupid when you dont participate" - queue the other kids laughing.
This happened across classes, multiple times with different people. The teachers where petty, confrontational towards other with differing opinions and did not enjoy being challenged in any ways, shape or form.
(I landed myself at the principals office multiple time by defending the vulnerable ones against draconic teachers) - and i'm not sure if it's still allowed - but i witnessed multiple times where teachers hit students.
(This was a "good" school btw.)
It was clearly an institutional culture, and they didn't know what to do with me because i came from the complete opposite and had the moral highground constantly - the kids where sad when i went back, the teachers (& principal) happy.
Oh, and the actual level of teaching was super bad, all learning by hearth - no "think for yourself", composition or divergent thinking allowed
Also in terms of teaching, I actually appreciated the fact that we had a lot of compositions that emphasised critical thinking (more so than I had when I went to Germany for 6 months as an exchange student). Wonder if that's because things have changed since the 90s or if it's due to the private/public school difference.
On the other hand, I was very heavily bullied in middle school but that was by other kids not by professors. And once I got to High school the bullying completely stopped.
From my POV, the school social structure in USA seems very "schematic". Like there are popular kids and they look like this and have these attitudes, then there are geeks who are socially awkward and physically weak, then there are jocks etc.
My experience from growing up in Czechia was way more "random". There are kids who are more prominent than others, of course, but there aren't really many stereotypes to them. Some of them are dumb, but many of them are also pretty smart and have strong interests. All these people qualities are there, but they are not strongly categorized and appear in various permutations.
There's no good translation for "geek/nerd/jock" in Czech, like you would probably need to spend 2/3 sentences to explain each of them. You can translate "popular kid" literally, but it's not a concept being used. Kids of course still associate into various cliques, they just aren't "schematic".
What are the odds your POV is coming from television and movies?
But seeing real conversations using those stereotypes ("I was your typical nerd kid at school") here, on reddit and even talking to people IRL convinced me that this "caste system" does actually exist in real life (of course not to the overblown degree shown in movies).
I'd be interested to know what the odds are that students themselves are self-selecting into categories based on what they seen in TV and movies.
Today it would be more IG and Tiktok, but what even are those if not micro-reality TV full of tryhards desperate to get a TV deal?
“From my POV, the school social structure in USA seems very […]”
I agree that it’s harder to generalize over all of Europe.
FYI, the US and Europe are roughly the same population and size (ignoring, as ever, poor Alaska) — ~350 million vs ~500 million, and ~8 million square miles vs ~5 million square miles.
While the US is considerably more culturally homogeneous than Europe, it is also quite hard to generalize across the United States.
In my experience, when non-Europeans say “Europe” they mean something like “the union of the EU and the EEA and the UK”. They probably exclude Russia and a few of the Russian-adjacent states, and if they think of Iceland, they include the part on the North American plate as well as the Eurasian plate.
A lot of this is a recentish phenomenon with kids mimicking what they see in US made movies and tv series - and also a whole lot more toned down than in the US.
>And reversely, nerds kid would often be made fun of, or socially excluded from breaks / activities
As a nerd, this has always been going on everywhere, and it's basically by definition, as people describe as "nerds" not just people that are good at school and have scientific and brainy interests, but the subset of the above that are socially clumsy, not into sports and the popular social activities, etc part of being a nerd.
Kids with "nerd" interests that are also socially savvy and also like the stuff the majority does, are still popular.
So, nerds being excluded in this sense is almost a tautology, and in many areas, even happens by preference (e.g. not liking parties and drinking). Of course one could argue that we nerds would like them if those were more into our preferences, but, well, those are not the preferences of the wider school population. So this is not exactly active ostracizing, just the 90% not changing what they like to accomondate the 10%).
Would a nerd be targetted for bullying? Yes, but in the same sense that a non-nerdy "weird" kid, a kid with a disability, a fat kid, an "ugly" kid, etc. It's not particular about being a nerd, it's about being different - and it's not built into the wider structure of school life like some kind of appartheid between groups, the way it seems to be in the US. And the bullies are not groups, like the popular kids or the jocks vs the nerds, but individuals. The bullies are usually are not even popular (just the school's sadistic kids with troubled homes and no future).
There are also not explicit popularity contests built into the school life, like "the prom", cheerleading, or some jock sport being a "big thing" with official school teams and everything, which appears to be the case in the US. If anything, the equivalent of the "popular" kids in some European countries would be the "cool kids" and those are not into school sports or popularity contests at all (more like the opposite).
So, the forces at play here are not as strong as described (from accounts I've read) in the US in any European country that I know of.
It was a time where playing Magic the gathering was really popular so I guess that reduced the stigmatization of nerdy kids.
- she’s such a swot
- I need to swot up on this
- don’t be so swotty
- look at that swot with his books
I was about to also mention the "copy homework" part, but I thought that would have sounded too specific, certainly glad that I wasn't the only one to whom that happened :) I've had a former highschool colleague thank me for everything I had helped her with during high-school at our 20 years reunion recently, she was a very smart person back then (still is) but the Physics classes just weren't for her.
My kids go to a scholl where: 1: you can only ever arrange playdates or gatherings with a maximum of 2 other kids - or its the whole class 2: bullying is not allowed in any way shape or form 3: no one is allowed to exclude others from games, plays or events 4: this is rigorously enforced 5: no smartphones or the likes until 4th grade (11-12)
This is then instilled in parents and kids, any crossing of those lines is debated in a democratic way and creates a selfenforcing positive feedback Loop
If these rules extends to life outside of school, I would be concerned more than relieved by rules 1 and 3. We should not normalise state-level control of our private gatherings by teaching freedom of association is somehow evil in children. It also would give a group of kids no way to sanction against antisocial behaviour by another kid (cheating in a game comes to mind).
That this has the thin varnish of "democratic debate" (which, let's be honest, will be quickly overruled if the kids decide the rules are stupid) only adds the additional aspect of showing in real-life how democracy is a scam that enforces things the powers to be like to happen while giving the impression it was a majority decision.
Or you just didn't see and experience it. There is more to bullying than everybody standing in a circle and openly making fun of the "nerd". Most successful bullies are very good at hiding their bullying from people they know wouldn't approve. Having had the unfortunate experience of seeing my daughter get bullied, bullies are sneaky, insidious and very good at keeping their behaviour just on the right side of plausible deniability. I fully believe that over half of her class had no idea she was being bullied.
It also seems like they should have gotten an ethics committee approval on what is very obviously a psychological experiment on minors, similar to Muzafer Sherif's "Robber's Cave" [1]?
Works
I disagree. Sure you can stop the most obvious and visible bullying, like physical altercations and obnoxious name calling, and make people generally 'behave' themselves while at school, but that just means the bullies becomes more careful and subtle, not that they stop.
And my experience from my school is not like that either. You could have been "geek" or "nerd" or onto something and no one cared. Being good at something was cool or neutral.
While some 'nerds' certainly did (and do) get bullied, in my experience they where just as likely to get bullied by other 'nerds' as they where to get bullied by 'jocks'. You didn't get bullied because you played D&D or Warhammer or where good at math, you got bullied because you where weird and anti-social and unable to successfully navigate the unwritten social norms expected of you. Lots of people got straight A's in math and science and played Warhammer and had no problem with bullying.
Did kids get bullied? Sure. But it had more to do with social awkwardness than certain interests or school results.
And for the 'popular kids', I could not define who the popular kids in my school could be. Not all girls would try to hang out with certain guys. Each girl had their own interests and that could differ a lot. A concept like a "prom king or queen" for me is totally out of this world. I cannot imagine that concept in my youth, and could also have no clue who the hell would be nominated for such a thing. In my adult life now? Sure, probably the guy with the successful business driving the sports car. In my youth, no idea, nobody stood out like that.
The difference with the US is about the social dynamics and the organization of school life, not about whether a nerd might be bullied.
The same way school shootings are an order of magnitude or two less common in Europe, in an total area with more population than the US has.
I don't think you get that anywhere else.
GP's experience feels extremely familiar to mine, even including the later realizations, and this from growing up across the pond.
You just happened to grow up around good people, but not everyone is as lucky unfortunately.
> As a child, McCarthy saw no value in school, preferring to pursue his own interests. He described a moment when his teacher asked the class about their hobbies. McCarthy answered eagerly, as he later said, "I was the only one with any hobbies and I had every hobby there was ... name anything, no matter how esoteric. I could have given everyone a hobby and still had 40 or 50 to take home."[15]
But McCarthy meant that he had 50+ concurrent consistently-actively-pursued hobbies/passions.
Which is something that's possible... if you have a lot of time on your hands, and you never allow anything into your life that drains you mentally so much that doing it kills your motivation to do anything else for the rest of the day. (Which IMHO is really only an option for people who are either retired, "independently wealthy", or being homeschooled.)
I myself paint watercolor and oil, am learning violin, joined a sailboat race team, am writing a book, started my own successful business that earns my living, lift weights, read 35 books, hiked 1000 miles of the AT, and became a volunteer firefighter, all this year. I'm currently designing a cabin I want to build. I'm having a blast. I definitely don't do as much with any of these hobbies as someone who only has one hobby, but I don't care, give me variety!
Still think he has ADHD?
I can only speak for myself, but was trying to avoid being labeled.
I wanted to people to actually get to know me and not just use me as a means to an end. I am not merely my hobbies. I do enjoy helping people out from time to time, but I strongly dislike being someone's "_____ guy". Very easy to be taken advantage of. The world isn't always nice.
I remember of a kid who was nerdier than me, but he didn't fit into the usual nerdy social anxiety and he also did boxing as a hobby so he was ok.
I concluded that it was not really about interest.
In other words, cool kids are fine with hanging out with un-cool kids, if it can be done in a way that does not involve un-coolness at all, so they don't become un-cool by association.
But those reddit threads often do include some research and references, so one has a jumping off point for one's own search with some keywords.
I'm sorry you had to work through this!
There are entire subreddits dedicated to hating on specific things or people. As if they define themselves not by what they love, but by what they hate, and derive some sick satisfaction from mocking others.
As I've gotten older, I realized these people are probably dead inside. So now I almost pity them. I can't imagine being so spiteful that I must shame another's passions.
LPT: Always pursue your passions without shame, and encourage others to do the same.
I recently hired a gardener on taskrabbit, and he was too cool for it so I’m trying to figure out “really? gardening bro?” and turns out he is totally hooking up with women on taskrabbit. like the modern day milkman! he’s also interested in plants and will do the work.
so there is merit to trying to figure out what the edge is, where is the dopamine coming from that gets you to associate the interest with fun?
in my experience, its worthwhile being skeptical, I’m either missing something or this person is completely unrelatable in a dozen other ways.
I would add music you don't like (ex: autotuned rap), "commercial" or "popular" everything (ex: Bud light), and sexual kinks (ex: pet play) to this list.
If you peek a little, you may find even find these topics to be surprisingly deep. Maybe even deeper than the things you like. Or maybe not, but don't dismiss them because they don't fit your preconceived ideas.
Yesterday I learned that there's an entire subreddit, dedicated to making fun of programmers. People take snippets of social media posts by programmers, and post them out of context (without links to the context), and everyone takes turns, making fun of the snippet.
That looks like a lot of fun... </s>
Hey, whatever creams your twinkie...
I’d also suggest that participating in these fora could have … adverse … effects on one’s future career prospects. I can assure you that many HR background checking companies scrape social media, and are getting fairly good at “deanonymizing” posters.
If I’m super into topic X and you’re not, there’s a good chance whatever you get will either not be of interest (e.g. bad beans) or just redundant (I can only use so many mugs or grinders).
Obviously the thought is always appreciated, and gift buying can be hard, I get it. But receiving a gift also creates an obligation to at least perform enjoyment of the gift and now it’s another thing I have to own (consumables at least are temporary if you’re not into them, so that helps).
There’s a sweet spot in gift giving of looking for something the receiver is into and will want (but not already have) but also something the giver is knowledgeable enough to make an informed decision on. So, again, the thought is always appreciated, but if the giver can’t operate a k-cup maybe leave your coffee snob friends to buy their own beans :).
I've told folks that want to buy me something to go into a specialty shop and ask for recommendations there. If they want to excite the folks working there, taking a photo of my collection will let them know my taste, and they'll get excited about doing recommendations (since they'll almost certainly also be whisky nerds).
This is probably the best bet for folks really determined to get something for $thing-nerds.
Also makes it easy for my wife to tell others: "Cognac, Grande/Petite/Fine Champagne". And boom, guaranteed right thing.
Also, no redundancy - just more to drink.
When in doubt, alcohol is an easy one, provided the recipient isn't too snobby.
A confusing gift sounds like fun, but an unwanted gift not so much.
Maybe not a full nuclear option, but a heavy offense, to be remembered for years.
Once I got a towel. Only one, but still, I needed to get some new ones and now I get to delay shopping that while longer because who wants to buy towels? Awesome.
People always think of gifts as fancy stuff. But if you can save me some time, or feed me, fantastic.
I would show bouncers who never thought it funny. My fave was one looked all over it and said "What?? Theres no birthday!"
May resolve GP's problem as it has a spot for the birthday.
1: https://pawmy.jp/product/cat-license/
2: https://pawmy-jp.translate.goog/product/cat-license/?_x_tr_s...
If a person has a friend that is into coffee, that's great news because you know your friend has a clear interest, but additional research is needed to make sure the gift is high-quality and redundant. Maybe 15-20 minutes of research on a specialty forum like r/coffee (at least the wiki) or a reputable YouTube channel (like James Hoffmann's) can help the gift-giver understand how to find quality beans (often light-to-medium from a smaller reputable roaster). If there's uncertainty, one can either directly ask the friend or make observations.
In the end, perhaps the best gift isn't so much the coffee beans per se, but the thoughtfulness you take in the person's hobby as you can then develop a shared interest.
I really wish the tradition of grown people giving each other gifts would disappear. We don’t need more stuff to clutter our lives and it’s utterly tragic how we destroy our world just to produce stuff that just might make people marginally happier in a few fleeting moments.
I long ago made it clear to my family they should just donate to charity in my name at holidays except in rare cases when I specifically say I want something. Took some convincing, but now everyone sees it as normal and I think it’s fulfilling for everyone involved.
I did the same for a work Secret Santa thing for several years and the givers who got me always appreciated that as well.
What's funny also is how certain things always become associated with gifts. When some of my friends grew beards in the 2010s they started receiving beard oils and balms etc. from everyone. I grew my beard much earlier and it wasn't considered a gift-giving thing back then. Coffee seems to be a thing you can be in to but (in the UK at least) tea isn't. Most people I know drink tea regularly but nobody would ever gift a teapot or something to them.
I guess I'm "into" tea and drink it everyday. While I'm not very particular (I like all types and even the worst tea bags make drinkable iced tea) the problem is I already have too much. I appreciate it a lot, but ATM I'm at capacity.
If you want to do something nice for a friend like this then genuinely engage with them about their passion. Suggest going for coffee at the new interesting places that are opening up. Be open minded to their suggestions. Nerds like sharing their knowledge and enjoying their little niche with others. It makes them feel understood and makes their world a little less lonely.
The mental image of you being annoyed because you just know that while your friends did their best, the universe would have conspired to put a really pristine first-edition there is pretty funny.
Considering how hard I find this myself, how hard isn't it for someone else to know what I would like to receive if I didn't tell them? A close few manage this anyway, as they might keep notes of things I mention during the year, or know me well enough to know what I will appreciate, but for other family and friends, I honestly think it's too much to expect.
The solution for me is to wish for things I know I'll appreciate like "∞ of experiences with you", "∞ of home-made stuff", and specific items in various price-ranges that I want and can post-pone buying myself, like "Physical copy of this book", "This specific game (on GOG)", and "This somewhat expensive clothing item". The more things I can wish for, the more options friends and family have, the less it feels like I'm ordering stuff, and the less I know what exactly I can expect under the tree.
TL;DR: Giving good gifts is hard, and putting some thought into a wishlist can make it better for both parties. YMMV.
Edit: I do think this applies to lots of other hobbies though
I'm not sure why that is.
Buying a gift for an expert when you are not an expert is always going to lead to disappointment, no matter how well they hide it.
I buy gifts only from areas that I am an expert in, and I hope my friends may not be as enthusiastic about the area as I am, but at least we both know I got them the best for them.
- Not understanding my nuanced preferences and getting me something I know about and don't like
- Not appreciating how to choose a good product (for example, with beans, an old roast date of more than 30 days means sad & stale coffee)
- Getting me something I like but I already have
In many cases I of course smile and am polite, and of course I am truly grateful for the thought, _but_ there is a level of disappointment which I have to hide because it saddens me to be wasteful, and I don't like putting on a performance. There are very few if any coffee things that I like but don't have, and are at a gift level price point (<$100). For consumables like filters and beans I have nuanced preference and it's unlikely that you'll happen to choose something that I like, but very likely that you'll choose something I know I don't like.
From this experience as a recipient, I have learned to be very careful about the gifts I give to others. I steer clear of things in the realm of someones passions, and try to share something I know and love. For example, I don't give whiskey lovers whiskey, or whiskey glasses, because I don't know what kind of whiskey they like, and I'm likely to give them something they know and don't like! So often times I'll use my superpower of knowing a lot about coffee to give the whiskey lover a high quality coffee that they would probably have more difficulty finding or choosing themselves. A great conversation can ensue where I can share why I think that coffee is great and interesting, and why I think they'll enjoy it.
Conversely, when Whiskey person wants to get me a gift, I would much prefer they give me a whiskey they like and think is great, and explain it's merits to me. I don't know much about whiskey, so it's easy to wow me and I love learning about it from friends who do!
Fortunately, even if I don't end up brewing all of it, I don't let it go to waste. In the past, I combined all of this throwaway coffee to season some new fancy burrs.
Generally people shouldn't get me coffee gear - as that could lead to disappointment. But the beans themself? always well received.
I'm also into photography, and any kind of photography gear you get me is likely to be incompatible with my setups or the types of work I do.
Same with cooking. Someone got me a frying pan once for my birthday because the coating was coming off, and I had been intending to buy a new one. It was a nice frying pan, but it isn't compatible with my induction stove, so that gift pan is sitting unused in a drawer somewhere, and I had to buy my own new one that is compatible with my stove.
Basically -- Buy consumables as gifts. Never buy equipment, unless they're a enthusiastic beginner and you're an expert.
Family member once heard I was getting into cooking, and bought me these bad, half oven mitts. I feel lousy every time they come over now: their oven mitts were quickly replaced.
But yeah – buying me a small, consumable gift will always be a treasured thing, and never an inconvenience. At worst, I don't enjoy the coffee much. I still received a gift and got to hear a story of its purchase.
But if you're an enthusiast/expert and they're interested but not to that level, and you have a decent idea of what gear they have and don't have, then it can work.
In terms of coffee beans, yeah, they can be a nice gift if you have a bit of an idea (good small roaster, roast type, e.g. espresso or filter, freshness, etc.) but for me at least, I basically always have just enough coffee for what I need (I buy a new 250g bag of espresso roast about weekly, one or two days before I run out of the old stuff)... But I'm always happy to try something, just don't go overboard and buy a kilo or something! 250g is plenty!
The economists I’ve talked to say if you’re maximizing Utility then give cash.
I absolutely appreciate the thought, but a tool I won't use because it doesn't match my needs or is just unergonomic is a waste.
Now that I think about it, I think a gift card has to be priced at exactly a 1:1 price. (You can't price it higher because people will find that to be outrageous.)
Do not enter a commercial transaction that doesn't benefit you?
I don't drink wine, and I don't buy wine for my wine-loving friends because I know I don't understand wine enough to know what I'm buying.
“There was once a man named Arthur Robinson who was, as they say, very hard to shop for. He was a nice man, but as the Christmas shopping season began every year, his family and close friends and business associates grew to resent him. Arthur Robinson had no hobbies. He did not grill chicken in the backyard or bake bread, so the problem of what to give him for Christmas could not be solved with a new piece of kitchen equipment or an apron with witty sayings on it. ...
Then in October one year, Arthur Robinson made his first business trip to Africa. Having found himself about to return home with some local currency that was notoriously difficult to change in the United States, he plunked it down at the airport gift shop for the first items that caught his eye—two small statues of elephants. ...
That Christmas, all of his children gave him elephant statues for Christmas. He couldn’t imagine why, until he realized that he had put the elephants from Africa on a table in his study. ...
The year after that, he received nine elephant statues. A lot of the cards said, in addition to Merry Christmas, ‘For your collection.’ Arthur Robinson didn’t think he had a collection of elephant statues. ...
Arthur Robinson continued to thank everyone for the elephant statues—twenty-three by the fourth Christmas following that business trip to Africa. His family and friends had been greatly pleased to find something to get him for Christmas. ‘At least Arthur’s no problem,’ they’d say as they went down their lists. ‘Good old Arthur and his dreadful little elephants.’
Which meant that when they ran into Arthur during Christmas shopping season, they no longer seemed put out with him. They gave him a cheerful hello. He was always polite, but he resented them deeply.”
Not the question. The resentment comes from being expected to pretend you appreciate "gifts" that are nothing but chaff in the gears of your life. Ask me how I know (actually don't, you can guess, right?).
> people grow into whatever they end up with a collection of
What? No. I don't know about you or the people you've been hanging around with, but some of us have actual tastes of our own. The phenomenon of people being deluged in variations of the same thoughtless personal-meme-gift is well-attested. I'm not aware of any cases where the recipient actually changed their personality to fit, and I would further claim that it's unhealthy to try.
Honestly, what are you trying to do here? Whatever it is, stop.
Only a spoiled child gets angry about getting gifts they didn't want.
>> Honestly, what are you trying to do here? Whatever it is, stop.
"Do"? "stop"? Under whose authority and why? I was making a comment. If you think I'm trying to demolish some moral position you hold, go ahead and explain why... but "honestly"+"whatever"+"stop" doesn't tell me what you're actually objecting to.
And then you come in telling me I'm an asshole for having independent taste, and telling me I should just mold my personality to whatever nonsense other people decide to give me, and really I don't have my own taste after all and it's normal to submerge myself in the crap other people saddle me with. You come in telling me, and everyone else in this thread with the same position, that you know better than we do about our personality on the basis of exactly zero personal acquaintance. Just because you're cool with your llama cufflinks doesn't mean everyone else needs to be cool with the arbitrary bullshit that gets flung at us. Fuck off with that shit.
I am impossible to buy for and I'm happy that way; I just tell people they don't need to get me anything.
I used to work with a guy who had at least a dozen pirate-themed t-shirts people had bought him, because he always wore pirate themed t-shirts. What's with the pirate shirts? "I bought one shirt because I liked it, then my girlfriend saw it and got me another one, now everybody just buys me more and more."
Mix it up, gift givers, don't outsource your thinking.
Someone I was fairly fond of was retiring, a few levels above me. Traditionally, items are given. I gave an autographed copy of a particular book (we discussed it in my job interview over ten years prior) which related to our profession, a special dessert one (from the area in which she served in the Peace Corps), and a bottle of dandelion wine (her favorite author was Bradbury, who just died, and who authored Dandelion Wine). These went over well, despite not being the rarest of books or the most expensive of wines, but because of the dependence on and acknowledgement of my knowledge of her.
I mean, it's Snap-On, so not really obscure, but that particular model has been discontinued and you can't buy them anymore, so it's a little bit obscure in that regard.
Anyway, it's a 3/8" drive driver handle with the socket cap in the head so it can be used as an extension. Those things are all over the place in 1/4" drive from every brand on the planet, but back in 1994 or so when I bought my F50CSA there weren't a lot of 3/8" drive ones around. Especially not the ones that could serve as an extension. There are more now, but they still aren't anywhere near as ubiquitous as the 1/4" drive ones.
Long story short, that tool is probably my favorite tool that I've ever bought. It's actually the only Snap-On item I own, as I consider their stuff too expensive to buy for the most part. Most of my hand tool collection is older (USA made era) Craftsman, with a smattering of other stuff. Lately I've started buying GearWrench, Icon, and Tekton stuff.
A family member once drove down from Portland to visit us in San Jose. She knew I was really into coffee and roasted my own.
She stopped at a little roastery on the way down and asked, "Give me the darkest roast you've got." After all, the darker the roast, the better it is, right?
Naturally when she gave it to me, I said "That's a burnt roast! It's good for nothing but the trash."
No, obviously I didn't do that.
We ground some and brewed it and enjoyed it for what it was: not just the beans, but the kindness and thoughtfulness that went into picking it out for me.
It's not all about me for F's sake.
a) You just don't like chocolate and never eat/bake/cook with it,
b) You really like chocolate but only very particular/fancy kinds that people never manage to gift you,
c) Sonething else that would be actually interesting to hear.
So if you give me a box of chocolates, a case of beer, a carton of cigarettes, a bag of weed, the latest Call of Duty, or a Game of Thrones boxed set, I'll thank you politely and then dump it. I don't enjoy doing that one bit but it beats eating/drinking/smoking/playing/watching stuff that I'd otherwise deliberately refrain from.
I travelled abroad last week and bought a last-minute gift for the family on the way home: a box of sugary sweets. But nobody in the family wants to eat them.
They all have a fixed quota of sweets each week (Swedish lordagsgodis [1]) and so choosing candy to eat is a zero-sum game. This random confectionery didn't make the cut.
So into the bin they go. Seems a shame but I'm used to it by now.
[1] https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20211004-lrdagsgodis-sw...
Surely it's bad enough having all the trashy sugary junk food on display at the supermarket check-out without the extra step of people actually buying it on your behalf...
See also people who give absurd quantities of candy to other peoples' kids and think that's great on the basis of the immediate reaction of joy...
What kind of gifts would you prefer?
* Level 0 is: use a physical notebook or agenda and ditch the digital space. It's actually not that bad. Setup: seconds. Privacy and ownership: great. Not as convenient as a digital thingie. No CTRL-F. * Level 0 is using something that you already have. Send emails to yourself, use keywords in the title and use filters to keep the "notes" organized. Time to set up: 10 minutes. Privacy and ownership: 0 (unless you are your own email provider, in that case you are done) * Level 1 is using a note-taking app which provides the backend. Evernote and the evernote-likes. Setup is minutes, privacy and ownership is also 0. * Level 2 is markdown file, or a hierarchy of files inside a folder, and then using something like dropbox for editing and synching. It is only slightly better than the previous one in that you can move away quickly if you want, and you can have local copies of your stuff. It is easy to set up, some ownership, no privacy. * Level 3 is self-hosting an evernote or dropbox-like and using that. That's possibly years of "fun", with high privacy and ownership.
Buy them good beans, tho! Otherwise they will just be used to season their new grinder burrs.
If someone is into coffee, they will want great specialty beans. There are a lot of awesome specialty shops, but rare you will see them at the supermarket.
Gifts don’t mean just one thing.
There is a variety of things you can optimize for.
For my wife, me getting her something she wants but wouldn’t get herself is the right gift. That, or something she wouldn’t have been able to find for herself.
Surprises are low on her list. Extravagant gifts are low. She would be the kind of person not to buy the coffee for, because she knows what she likes and if you bought her the wrong thing, the thought would count but now what do you do with this bad bag of coffee?
I’m the opposite. I care much more about the fact that you thought about me long enough to do something specific and special to me.
As someone who does not like presents, that may be the core thing about presents that speaks to me. Presents are a way, but maybe something else could work.
I'm fine with people just showing me they like me and hanging out with me though. And they don't have to do anything special for this.
But if you know someone who is into a very technical hobby, it might be hard to give them a gift, or have a lengthy conversation.
I knew a friend who was really into ranch dressing. Every time we went to eat, we knew what he would order, or could help him order. silly thing that enhanced the relationship.
maybe we should all come up with hobbies or interests like this, to help break the ice with others and make ourselves more approachable.
By far the easiest people to buy for are drinkers. And I don't mean wine industry people, I mean old school alcoholics. Whatever bottle of scotch you pick, they may have tried it before but they'll still get full enjoyment of it.
Lots of other examples here(wfleming here says the same thing) but in short, this happens nearly every time someone gives me gifts based on their superficial idea of a hobby I'm in. The thing ends up being worthless and I begrudgingly pretend to be satisfied with the gift.
I find that even the worst can (usually) be salvaged as cold brew.
Please somebody tell me this is an incredibly low bar to be "the coffee friend" -- I'm not ready for that kind of responsibility.
If I did know someone like this, I suppose I'd think of them as my "coffee friend" or rather, friend who is really into coffee. That is unless they also had a bunch of other esoteric hobbies that overshadow the coffee thing.
I have a really basic grinder, actually it is more of a thwacker, in the sense that you just plop the beans in there and it'll thwack them to bits (want fine ground for pour over? Hold the button longer. French press? Don't hold it too long). This shouldn't count. You can get really fancy grinders.
And who doesn't have a favorite coffee place?
The Seattle and Vancouver people did. Boston was split. Wisconsin didn't except in Madison or Milwaukee.
It depends where you live. A lot.
I have discouraged friends and family to buy me gifts for years. I've also gradually stopped buying gifts for people as soon as I feel it's not too weird.
I'm at a point people around me understand I don't want presents, and some are convinced not doing gifts is a good idea, especially the wasteful part. We don't do gifts at Christmas with my parents anymore. We just skip this shitty period where you stress out spending too much money buying presents for everyone at the same time as everyone else, we just have a good time and everything is smooth. No need for presents to show we love each others. My parents are still used to buy each other presents for their respective birthdays (and involve us), but I think that's mostly because they are trapped in it.
If we want a healthy planet we really need to think about the presents and especially on Christmas, which shall be reinvented. Teaching kids to expect and demand presents can't be good at this time, by the way.
I do have a couple exceptions though. I'm close with my brother and sometimes run across something that I know he actually needs, and buy that for him. My exes have all really loved receiving flowers spontaneously.
The difference is that expectation of reciprocation feeling that you mentioned. I hate scheduled gift-giving. It feels so insincere.
On the other hand, I am into notebooks and fountain pens and till today even I don’t know what kind I am really into. So until I have seen it, touched it, held in my hand I don’t know what I want. My friends definitely don’t.
I usually gift hardcover “good” books. Not what I “know” they like, but what I “think” they’ll like. And even non-readers have finished most of my printed books.
Forums (and BBS before them) were so effective in connecting people over shared interests that they created so many shared contexts between those people that anecdotally for those who lived on forums... loneliness is far less of a societal issue than those who didn't experience forums.
I would've loved to have seen an alternative timeline where social media wasn't as it is, but was always around interests.
Being "into coffee" before it was really a thing I can't count how many times someone has given me a bag of coffee that is roasted to taste like an ashtray many moons ago.
It's not that I don't appreciate the gesture. It's just that I know I can't be truthful about the gift and these white lies weaken the friendship.
I meant "a thing" like being a "foodie" became a thing. Before having an interest in something became part of someone's self constructed identity.
From my lived experience if I mentioned to someone that a particular friend was "the coffee guy" in my social circle 15 years ago they would assume that he worked in the coffee industry. They probably wouldn't assume that he was potentially a lawyer and has a cupboard full of various coffee brewing devices.
I mean sure for a long time the concept of a coffee connoisseur was a thing, the SCAA was a thing but to clarify at some point it became not only acknowledged but socially acceptable to refer to yourself as "the coffee guy".
As for your remarks about expertise, self and self worth it depends on the domain and the individual.
https://www.amazon.com/Gift-Nothing-Patrick-McDonnell/dp/031...
For some of us it's a hassle.
i don't. why do blog autors keep making statements like this?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kopi_luwak
A delicate coffee made from, well read the article.