"Well you'd think. But my father is an Oxford educated academic who can generally hear and understand words, in fact words are his speciality, and yet still can't buy decent presents even when he's been told exactly what to buy and the shop to buy it from. Inevitably something goes wrong."
This post really leapt out at me, because it expresses something really, really important, which is this: it's not about understanding words. We can understand every word someone has said, and everything about how they fit together syntactically, and still not "hear" them. The act of listening goes far, far beyond communication - it's about understanding the foundational emotional makeup of a person.
I'm sure you've all seen that blog about the guy whose wife divorced him because he left dishes out on the side. Now he fully understood when he was being asked to put them in the dishwasher - he comprehended every word of every reminder. BUT he didn't understand emotionally how it made his wife feel when he ignored her wishes, how invalidated she felt, and how it linked up with other areas of their marriage where she was unhappy.
Listening can't be reduced to the comprehension of language without losing what it's really about - taking the trouble to "see" the person in all their complexity!
And that's why buying crap presents can be hurtful for some, particularly when someone is overriding another's clearly expressed wishes. For some people, gifts don't equate to anything more than gifts. For others, a crap present stands in for something larger - it's not just an awful gift, just as the dishes left by the sink weren't just dishes left by the sink, but something that epitomises a more fundamental lack of recognition. There is no right or wrong way to be here - people are different in their attitudes to presents - what IS wrong is the act of not listening, or overrriding, or telling someone their attitude isn't the correct one because you happen to disagree with it.
Just to be clear: we aren't talking about money here. A great gift has nothing whatsoever to do with the amount of cash that is spent on it. Instead, we are talking about thoughtfulness, a care for others that opens a space for them and for a loving relationship with them.