Relationships

How to React If You Don't Like a Gift

A Personal Perspective: Different ways to react if you don't like a present.

Posted June 30, 2026

Recently, a new friend gave me a nightgown for a birthday gift. The swirling blue and green shapes were perfect, but the material was nylon and I only wear cotton for sleeping. I didn’t know if I should say something to my gift-giving friend or not. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. I finally told her the truth. Her eyes welled up and she said this was just confirmation of her ineptitude and why she had problems with relationships and how she suffered from depression.

It was certainly not the first time that my rejecting a gift led in an unexpected direction. Even though I am committed to honesty and transparency in relationships, I didn’t know if truth was always the best policy. I once received a necklace I didn’t want, and re-gifted it to a friend for her birthday. About a week later, she was wearing it to a party and the original gift-giver was there and noticed it. I ended up in the uncomfortable and embarrassing situation of coming clean to both of them.

I asked a few other friends in the United States and in Europe, South America, and Mexico, and they all said they had the same dilemma when they received a gift they didn’t want. Several mentioned that it was particularly awkward when the gift came from a member of the family. They usually held onto the gift so the family didn’t find out they had regifted it.

A French man who lives in the U.S. told me that he has a virulent allergy to eggs, and when he visits his mother in France, she often serves him omelets. He becomes angry every time, and he passes on the eggs, but he doesn’t tell his mother how he feels. I told him about the book Radical Honesty: How to Transform Your Life by Telling the Truth by Brad Blanton, a psychotherapist. Blanton encourages readers to stop repressing emotions like anger, which leads to resentment. He believes that stifling strong feelings puts you in a prison of not saying how you think and feel. The French man read the book and said it inspired him to tell the truth in his life and stop living with lies. He spoke to his mother in a calm, strong, and unemotional voice. “I thought she would blow up at me for saying the truth, but instead, she stopped serving me omelets.”

Several studies have been conducted on prosocial lying, which is a common feature of everyday communication. For example, an employee may tell a colleague that they delivered an excellent presentation when they did not, or thank a gift giver for a gift they would have rather not received.

As children, we learn to tell prosocial lies to be polite (Broomfield et al., 2002; Talwar et al., 2007). Prosocial deception is also common in adult relationships (Tyler & Feldman, 2004). Adults lie in roughly 20% of their everyday social interactions (DePaulo & Bell, 1996), and most of these lies are prosocial (DePaulo & Kashy, 1998).

I asked Dawn Abriel, a psychotherapist in New Mexico, about this and wanted to pass on to you some of the nuanced and frank ideas she has on the subject of reacting to gifts you don’t want.

“To someone really trustworthy and close, you can say, ‘That is something I doubt I will use but I know someone who needs it. May I gift it to them from you?’

To a manipulator, ‘Gosh, I think the relationship we have right now as (co-workers, employee/employer, etc) is best kept professional and this kind of gift does not seem like a fit.’

To a homemade (ugly?) gift: ‘You obviously put a lot of time and effort into this and I love the message of your caring. Thank You.'"

And of course, you can always just say, "Thank you!"

Read the original article on Psychology Today →