The modern western version of "gifts" is really about pushing over-consumption. If marketers cannot convince you to buy something yourself, they can try to convince someone else to buy it for you.

I've always felt that gifts should be tokens. Symbols of good will, reminders of the relationship. Consumable gifts are great, especially when shared with the giver. Alcohol is great for this, but there's plenty more you can do. Small, inexpensive art prints or figurines.

I don't want someone else to buy me something I woukd want to research myself. My parents gave me a "snow thrower" for Christmas a couple years ago. Its a relatively cheap, Ryobi 40v thing- I do not own anything else that uses that battery ecosystem. My step-dad loves his, and I am it is great for their 2-car driveway, but my driveway can probably fit like 10 cars in it, and I would have rather saved up for something nicer myself. Now i'm in this weird limbo where I feel socially obligated to use it for several years at least before I replace it with something I actually want.

My fiance literally sent me the ring she wanted for our engagement.

Surprises suck, communication rocks!

There are plenty of kinds of surprise that can be wonderful in the right context. Perhaps easiest is when someone tells you they want/would like something, you keep an eye out for opportunities, and surprise them when it comes around. (My wife wanted to see a comedian. I subscribed to their newsletter, and then got (refundable) tickets when they were performing near us, years later.) There can also be things that you are confident someone else will like, which they don't know exist. (I bought a friend a battery operated pruner after seeing him struggle to keep up with bushes.) Or small things that someone likes (flowers, chocolate, breakfast in bed, depends a lot on what they are into).

The guitar repair was the worst kind of surprise: something irreversible, which the surprisee clearly knew about, and has chosen not to do at every single opportunity - while the surpriser doesn't know why they are choosing not to. That's not respectful, which is the absolute minimum requirement for a surprise to work.

I love to find something for a person that they don't even know they want until I give it to them, and that they will love. Can't do it on demand though - I have to see something and think "wow, cRazi-man would love this and I bet he's never even seen one.". Then buy or make whatever it is for that one person.

My kids say that now their standards for gifts are crazy because that is how I gift. Not many, not often, only when inspired, I don't think they realized it was unusual.

I don't understand the value of random crap. But do think that a surprise can be so good.

I don't understand this insane fixation that society has with gifts being "surprises", I find to so annoying, sometimes it even ends up being worse than not giving anything at all the gift is genuinely useless.

One particularly bad case in experience of a surprise gift for me, was when my mom decided to surprise me with a computer as gift, specially since this is a significal finnancial burden, one of which could have been partially relifed by letting me choose and pick parts, but even though we had an agreement to let me pick the parts she just decided randomly to buy a prebuilt instead without notifying me at all, when I was extremely angry at her for this and when I questioned her horrible decision, she said: "I just wanted you to have a happy surprise" and tried to make emotionally guilty trip me when I didn't show any thankfulness for the gift with: "Why don't you love me? I do everyrhing for you"

Why? do people assume that I want a surprise? why is this idea so ingrained into people's brain that when I ask to simply give tge money one would have spent instead in buying the gift, that is seen somehow as rude, what is so rude about trying make the most out of the money would've been spent into a worthless sock I didn't ask nor need?

This is projection

Firstly, they'll repair and/or make any guitar look better. It's their job so they'll do it. Secondly and more importantly, it isn't about if the guitar is damaged or not. It was clearly loved for what it was, it was probably more about the history of it than anything else.
It's really not hard to not fuck with other peoples stuff without their consent. And it's real sad that people like you exist that don't seem to understand that.

There's not enough context here to say that with any certainty. If husband was playing it and enjoying it, then it's doing the job it needs to. Even if it was actually broken and actually fixed, it still changes the relationship between player and instrument and could've easily taken away earned character as a way to make it look "nice"

Doesn't Fender sell pre-worn guitars for a premium?

It's very situational. Cracks and dings? No good. Natural checkering from age on an old acoustic? Higher value.

some poorly done repairs can be a downgrade

Any tone in existence can be achieved with repaired and properly functioning equipment by a competent musician, avoiding repair because they don't know how to do that is embarassing

There's a video of it getting "repaired" out there somewhere.

You're all over this thread and you're a jackass.

Yeah I play. Yeah I had the shittiest beat up guitar when I was in my youth. I took it all over the world because I didn't care what happened to it. Loved it while I had it and if someone had "fixed it", that would have destroyed what it was to me, jackass.

And yeah now I have "better" guitars and I don't have that 25$ guitar anymore.

Bassist here, I want my bass to sound fucking dirty, fuck the pro fix up. I do it myself and I have since high school. get. fucked.

I bought a budget epiphone Les Paul and just swapped out the electronics (and tuning knobs) with resale Gibson parts. Sounds great for less than $400.

Can you shut up please

Narcissists feeding on other narcissists. Reddit was full of those people, and Lemmy also has them.

Plus there are podcasts that use those subs for content, so people submit their “creative” writing to see if they can get featured.

I have a newer LG washing machine in my house. It smells like the sewage line is backing up into it ... which I know it isn't because it free-drains into a utility sink.

It says that he salvaged and repaired himself.

He didn't "salvage" jack shit he was dumpster diving in high school

Tell me you've never played with out telling me you've never played

As I already said, a guitar tech can bring it back to its original state for free or a small fee in a matter of minutes. If you refuse to play it instead then its on you.

Repeating myself from a previous comment:

And if the road-earned patina is now shine? and the scratches are now filled with wood glue under a glued on pick guard? and the peg that came off that old banjo they found in the middle of a gig 20 years ago has been replaced with a brand new set. And the notch on the edging where steve’s girlfriend slammed a nazi in the face at the same party where sabrina fucked that idiot from the ska band and got pregnant?

Yeah probably the wife went to the guitar tech and asked "can you please make this better" and they gave it the classic fret leveling and crowning for a lower action and probably not much more for 200$. But the downvote mob already picked its side in this story so I'm not even gonna bother correcting them.

Imagine your kid fishing someone else's abandoned painting out of the trash, halfway un-crumpling it and taking it home, then getting mad at you for smoothing it the rest of the way out and framing it for them. The wife was right, the husband is a petulant shit, you and your hypothetical children are dumb as dirt.

It also mentions that a professional fixed it up, and the husband was not that professional, so he probably also did a dogshit job at that.

This is projection on your part, calm down