India, Feb. 21 -- Birthdays - any celebration, actually - only matter because it's when you can shamelessly ask everyone to indulge you. Eyeing a collector's-edition copy of RF Kuang's The Poppy War? Get your bestie to pre-order it. Need a new console for your gaming set-up? 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 meantfor 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. There's a lot of hate for re-gifters. Perhaps it's the recipients who need to clear their heads a bit. Were it not for her aunt's thoughtful re-gifts, Kamya Garimella, a 22-year-old journalism student from Melbourne, would not have had the enviable makeup collection she has today. "My uncle gave her an Urban Decay eyeshadow palette for their wedding anniversary," Garimella says. "But she passed it on to me, knowing that I would experiment with makeup more. It's my most used item." Take betrayal out of the equation and presents feel more thoughtful. Sukruthi Chakkungal, 22, a BTech student from Vellore, recalls her 13th birthday, when she received a set of World War II novels from her friend, Tejas Nageshwaran. The two bonded over their love for reading. He whipped up the selection from his own bookshelf. She loved the idea. She only realised that they weren't new after she spotted a note inside a copy of All the Light We Cannot See, signed not by Tejas but a mutual friend. "I was confused at first. I found it funny, really. I did bring it up with Tejas. He didn't even know there was a note inside. He gave the book to me because he thought I'd like it, and I did. I still have it; he's still one of my closest friends. Last year, he gave me the most amazing present, a Spotify plaque of my favourite song, Irakkam Varamal by Bombay Jayashri, with a picture of us,"she says. Besides, there's too much stuff in the world already. Why hate the idea of getting a Warm Caramel Vanilla candle from a friend who got it for her birthday, but isn't as much of a vanilla girl as you are? Why get upset over receiving a shirt that's exactly your size and style, because it was originally given to a friend who didn't like it, but knew you would? Why wince when a gift voucher gets passed on to you, when it could have been passed on to anyone else? There are re-gifting rules, obviously. Don't pass on used stuff, or things without their original packaging. Nothing musty, dusty, falling apart. Don't palm off a generic item just because someone was thoughtless enough to give it to you. Re-wrap. Take price tags and personal notes off. And no personalised, monogrammed items. Three years ago, a friend gave Suchit Kakar, senior strategist and consumer psychologist at Landor, a scarf for his 32nd birthday. It had the initials of the original gifter embroidered on it. All Kakar could think of was, "Come on, man. You've got to do better than this!" And if money really doesn't matter, add a new present along with your re-gift so the recipient is less likely to view it as a cast-off. But if all you get from that one person is pre-gifted stuff, gather all your unwanted stuff and gift it to them in revenge....