Wrap up the debate

Re-gifting isn't lazy or tacky. It means that the gift was meant for you all along. Why hate on a good present's backstory?

- Tanya Syed

Birthdays — any celebration, actually — only matter because it's when you can shamelessly ask everyone to indulge you.

Eyeing a collector’sedition copy of RF Kuang’s The Poppy War? Get your bestie to pre-order it. Need a new console for your gaming setup? Your rich cousin can get that covered. The COSRX Snail Mucin combo? Let three colleagues chip in on the Tira voucher. The flip side is that when everyone is obligated to please you, it's easy to hate on the one person who gives you something that was originally meant for them.

The gifting police (aka online haters) have been making arrests. Reddit threads and Facebook groups have been calling out re-gifting, grumbling that it offends both, the original gifter and the eventual receiver. And it makes the re-gifter seem ungrateful and lazy.

But seconds don't have to be sloppy. Who decided that all presents have to be new, paid for, and purpose-bought in the first place? It’s giving cold transaction. And it diminishes the idea that a gift should be, above all, thoughtful.