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Comment by JoeAltmaier | Hacker News Reader

Pretty clinical approach to gift-giving? Were socks and new underwear on the list? How about a 12-pack of WD-40 for dad?

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Wait until you get married, then you'll understand ;) Wedding registries, baby registries... And in many cases that type of gift-giving extends to Christmas and birthdays.

Married for 30 years. 3 brothers, 2 sisters, 13 nieces and nephews. Still haven't resorted to asking people what they want. What's the point? They can get that for themselves.

I deleted my previous comment as perhaps I am taking your comment too personally.

I agree with you that it is nice to be surprised. I am just pointing out that there are legitimate uses for the "clinical" approach to gift giving: wedding and baby registries are quite common. If you don't know the newlyweds/parents nor the contents of their house very well, the registry can go a long way to giving them a gift that they actually need and will use.

Cheers

Yeah; I guess there's the class of obligatory gifts that social circumstances extort out of us. We no longer question why we're going to a wedding of somebody we don't know.

Still, the idea that somebody has set up a list of 'acceptable gifts' sticks in my craw.

I have a friend that always gives a wooden trencher board as a wedding gift for anybody. Different enough not to be duplicated.

Ah I see where you're coming from. The list I was speaking of originally was a wishlist. It wasn't a "buy only these things or you're no longer family" ;) Incidentally my app supports "secret gifts". You can enter a surprise gift that everyone but the recipient can see. That avoids duplicate gift buying even when someone else had the same great idea for a "secret gift" that you did :)

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