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

Surprises suck, communication rocks!

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.

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?