Gift-giving can be terribly frustrating.

Despite my best efforts, I usually completely miss when giving gifts to a certain group of my friends and family. I never see them use the gifts, and I can tell that they don’t really like them. In most cases, these gifting duds have been happening with the same people for years.

In contrast, there is a subset of my friends and family for which my gifts are generally a hit. I see them use the gift, and I sense genuine appreciation when they say, “Thank you!” Like the duds, the successes generally repeat with the same people year after year.

The strange thing is that I don’t know the people in the second group any better or worse than the first group. I always feel bad about the flops, so I try even harder the next time, but success continually eludes me.