She says she doesn’t want a birthday present. Of course it’s a trap

“Honestly, I don’t need a thing,” she said. “What could you possibly get me? Roast a chook and invite some friends over. Don’t buy me a birthday present.”

“What could you possibly get me?” sounds like a rhetorical question, asked because the answer is obviously “nothing”. A statement made by someone who suddenly realised they are replete, satisfied, happy. But only a fool would hear it that way. It’s a real question, all right. And it has an answer. And the answer is not “nothing”. And the answer is not to roast a chook or the offer of your continuing love – one is mere poultry and the other merely paltry.

A gift signifies what she means to you, it represents your relationship, it is an icon of your love, and its giving is a ritual romantic affirmation that must be honoured. It’s true, the present itself is nothing. But the nothingness of no present is really something. The lack of thought in no present is brazen and deliberate. The fact that the whole procedure of nutting out what to buy and where to get it and what colour it should be didn’t delight you and stimulate you enough, knowing how her recognition of what you’d done would delight her … well, you’ve made an error, buster.

People who print “no presents” on an invitation are disingenuous. They are laying a trap – filtering the givers from the non-givers and compiling a list.

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So go out and get a present. And if you get the right present, a thing she has secretly coveted but told herself she didn’t deserve, then you have not only confirmed you still know her, you’ve also affirmed she is worthy of this covetable thing, and that your hearts are still in sync, and love lives.

So … now all you’ve got to do is choose the present that does all these things.

My old man once got my mother pots for Christmas. Heavy, black, enamelled cooking pots. I can still see their various parabolas as they sailed across the sitting room and hear them ringing like a carillon as they ricocheted off our walls and father. Pots were not what she wanted. Neither the pot-giver, as the pots finally made clear. I was six. Many six-year-olds would have concluded she was a difficult – perhaps violent – woman. But I said to myself: “Make a note, Anson. Being an attractive lad, one day you may have a wife of your own. And you must avoid giving presents to her that suggest you regard her primarily as domestic help.” A maxim I’ve lived by.

Especially galling is that Sarah always gives me presents that hit the mark. She somehow knows what I want. It’s almost as if she pays attention to me when I talk. Strange behaviour from a marital partner, if so. The pair of boots I have worn while swaggering through gangs of bikies, kicking Harleys over in my half-sleep before drifting off each night, arrive for my birthday. The coat I’ve rocked while accepting my gong from the governor-general in recent daydreams is folded and wrapped and waiting for me at breakfast as proof that at least one of us remembered our anniversary.