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Pretty sure it’s a joke about people giving him money for his bday which is pretty common among friends/family.
It was just my homies bday the other day and I gave him 40 bucks
what?
where i live money is not an acceptable birthday gift. you deserve it though work or because someone thinks you earned it and wants you to have it. if you gift out money on birthdays people would think you are cheap and buy yourself through relationships. over here it's a better look to gift nothing than just money. of course everyone would take the money, but more like "that wasn't necessary, but thanks anyway, you dumb asshole."
where do you live? genuinely asking. i've had a shit ton of relatives give me straight cash for birthdays when i was younger
germany.
straight up cash was never a thing. if you got money from friends or relatives for birthdays or xmas, it's usually because you want to gift something you can't afford to fuck up. like you know your friend wants f4 99a but you don't know the size, so you give him money for a set of wheels and tell him to get the right ones. and it's expected that the person honors that and doesn't spend the money on drugs and shit. still happens of course.
so culturally there is an expectation to not gift straight money. you'd get a gift card if you don't know what to give, or rather just nothing. if you went to a birthday party and everyone brought the birthday person some sort of cool gift for around 20 or 30 bucks(which is the usual price for a birthday gift for friends per person unless people collect money for a bigger gift purchase) and you come up and throw down a 50 everyone will think you're a dick trying to style on everyone with your cash while at the same time not being really invested in the person you're gifting something. also making the financial worth of a gift public is a taboo, even if the difference is obvious to everyone. gifting 50 bucks indirectly kinda shames everyone that hasn't put down this much money, even though they might have put more effort into their gifts.
things might be different now. i grew up in the sticks and am far too old to celebrate birthdays like that. i actually love spending my birthday alone and i hate presents, i'm super particulate about my stuff so it's never right, so i prefer to get nothing, because most of my birthday gifts disappear in some shelf to collect dust. so me and my friends, who are much the same(maybe a german thing, i dunno) we don't really get each other birthday presents anymore. instead we are basically buying eachother food and drink all the time. so we are extra nice to eachother and share everything, and try to spend time in a good way, instead of buying gifts. and when we gift eachother things they are mostly nice, but useless and cheap, like some crazy thrift store painting.
there's no presents on christmas either. if i'm lucky i visit my family and a few friends back home. taking the train is super expensive though so there would barely be any money left for presents anyway. nowadays spending time is the present, every person is their own present when present.
Not even trying to be a dick but your life/friends sound intolerable. Who the fuck reads that far into a simple gift. Some petty shit everyone has to spend the same amount of money to honor ur friend so they don’t feel bad? That’s some mental gymnastics I’d be outti-3000
you're not a dick, you just have no idea about the culture here. we're not assholes to eachother. gifting money just isn't a thing and makes you look like an asshole over here. at least when it comes to birthday presents or christmas.
it's not my life or friends. we are all normal. we gift eachother little stuff all the time outside of birthdays.
as i said, that might have changed. maybe kids these days just venmo eachother.
you didn't even get it right. it doesn't really matter how much you spend on the gift. as long as it's not money or says the price. 20-30 bucks is probably what most people think is adequate. some people go over or under, sure. basically you try to not have money be a thing with presents. and it's actually better to show up with nothing than with money.
so the acceptable gifts are:
-actual though out gifts
-money only for a purpose
-no gift, but actually be present and not act like you don't wanna be there
another thing, if you give a 50,- bill as a birthday present, over here people will expect the birthday child to spend it right away on beer for everyone. so you're not doing them a favor if you gift money at a party, since it's expected that money will basically be spent for all the guests. and after that you will be everyone's cash cow because you were the guy who was so dumb that he gifted money. everyone would mock you and treat you like an atm, asking you to buy more beer since you must be wealthy since you pass out 50s. it's smarter to buy a gift for 100,- people will respect that more and not treat you like a rich person.
and again we gift eachother all kinds of shit, take each other out eating all the time or hand down stuff we don't use amongst eachother. my friends are awesome. whenever i really need anything i'll get it no problem. it's just not bound to birthdays or christmas or any holiday anymore, more on a want/need basis.
there's always this neat trick of getting some bullshit gift and slip a bill into the birthday note. that's totally accepted. there needs to be a medium in the form of a stupid gift though.
look i wish i wasn't brainwashed by stupid german angst and traditions, i really don't need that stuff and often wished to just receive money instead of some crap, so i'm not against it myself. it's just weird to hear that it's normal for you guys. i agree that the mental gymnastics are crazy. often when i hear about social rules in japan i feel like it's almost a bit like over there, at least when it comes to these very special social occasions.
also the strong emphasis that money is never to be gifted, always to be earned through work. or only made available in an emergency, but never to as a means to achieve happiness. which is totally fucked because you need it for everything.