Little presents for friends
spontaneous gifts are the best
Thank you so much to Beth Spencer for another perfect painting. I think ‘oh, this is my favourite’ every single time, and then end up loving each new one more than the last. The colours in this one! The hands! I’m so grateful to her for collaborating with me. You can find Beth right here on Substack at Introvert Drawing Club - where you can join in friendly, non-intimidating live drawing sessions for free - and see her portfolio here.
Giving small presents to friends for no reason, out of the blue, is one of the great joys of life. It quietly says ‘I think about you, I love you, I see you, I’m here’. Receiving them is obviously intensely lovely too - a day/week/month improving thing.
Here are a few ideas, though before I get into it I should say that the most successful presents are often free, or as good as - all they cost is your time.
A night’s babysitting, a weekend’s pet sitting, a home-cooked meal (or six) for the freezer, something slightly wonky and home-made, be it pickle or a funny collage, helping a friend’s child with school work/revision in a topic they find challenging and you don’t - you get the idea.
The thoughtfulness is part of the present: someone picking up on what their friend is missing, or what would make them laugh, or what would help (or on the fact that everything’s fine but they could really do with a night out) is worth so much more than spending £££ on something generically ‘gifty’.
People often think they don’t have any useful transferable things, but that’s not true. If you’re good at buying shoes, that’s a skill. If you blast through admin, if you know how to edit a wardrobe, if you have nice handwriting, if you’re techy, if you have a good eye, if you can problem-solve, if you make amazing omelettes, if your blow-dries are next level, if you can make bouquets out of weeds (literally or figuratively), if you’re a whizz at tidying, if you can swim and your friend can’t and is embarrassed about it, etc etc — they’re all skills that can turn into presents.
So if you’re good at makeup, offer to apply it to someone who feels stuck in a rut (if you’re good at clothes, take them shopping), if they hate their sitting room walls and you can see why, offer to repaint (or rehang) them, if you have a steady hand, offer to do an older person’s nails, if your friend is struggling with everything, go and mow their lawn and take them round some food, and so on. It doesn’t have to be a magnificent gesture - it can be something tiny. It’s the noticing that really touches people’s hearts.
Or you could just take them round some spare seedlings. That is a very good present. Here’s another one: sitting quietly with someone who feels sad. You don’t have to ‘do’ or ‘give’ anything, or even say much - just being in the same room can help. I’ve said this before, but I really believe that all anyone wants out of life - apart from health, food, income, companionship and a roof over their head - is to feel heard.
We all have ears. We can all listen.
PS: In my experience, people who seem to have everything they might conceivably want or need are often the people who most love small impromptu gifts. It’s because they never get any, because everyone’s worried that their gift won’t be grand enough. I once gave such a person - she was having an incredibly shit time - a paper bag full of selected sour /fizzy sweets and honestly, it might as well have been a Fabergé egg. Because I’d remembered - ‘You remembered!’ - from years before that she loved them but never allowed herself to eat them. We sat in this beautiful room, full of extravagant flower arrangements that people had sent and that had been plonked in vases still in their wrapping, and she ate all the Sour Snakes in one go.
⭐️ There are hundreds of more general present ideas all over this newsletter, including here and here. There’s something in pretty much every post, frankly. Please note that free posts older than six weeks are now automatically paywalled. ⭐️
For everybody
This is not new - it was published in 2013 - but it is brilliant, like windows blasting open inside your head and light and air flooding in. I only read it relatively recently and have been giving it to everyone I care about ever since - man, woman, young, old, whatever.
Stephen Grosz is a practising psychoanalyst and a serious person. The book is a collection of case studies. You don’t have to read it in a lump - in fact I think it’s better to read it in small bites and then digest slowly.
I have a proof of his new book, which is about love and which is also extraordinary. I will write about it when it comes out in September. But meanwhile if you haven’t read this, get a copy for yourself as well as for your friend. WHAT A GIFT, seriously.
More books: this newsletter is awash with recommendations (if you’re reading this on the web, look under Books up there on the navigation bar). Most of them are also on my bookshop page, split into categories, from favourite novels to cookbooks. If you’re giving a book present to someone who could do with cheering up, the comfort reading list - mine + a PDF of paid subscribers’ contributions - is here.