Getting Personal

                If you can't beat 'Em, join 'Em :: Experience Days
            
                Obsession is sadly what drives many of us. If you're obsessed with your work you're a workaholic, if you're obsessed with shoes and high fashion you're a fashionista. In this world, most of us are just crazy-mad about something. 

Sometimes our obsessions get in the way of more pressing priorities. We can often get so in to a TV series, computer game, football match or vintage car renovation that we neglect the people we love and cherish the most.

It's also a quality which most of us sane types have to put up with in others. It's sad but true that phrases such as 'football widow' were coined as a result of many men's appreciation for the great game; which often over takes their appreciation of their great wife. 

Did you know that watching football actually makes some men incapable of answering simple questions like what they want for tea or how big a ladies bum looks? Similar slang terms have been dreamt up for people who suffer from other obsessions, too. 

He's got 'green fingers' we'll say about a plant fixated gardener. He's a 'movie buff' we'll say about someone who never stops watching films long enough to take out the rubbish. And so it goes that we all have these obsessive people in our lives and we're probably fixated with something or other ourselves too!

The man who wants silence when the footy is on, the little sister who just will not stop singing her favourite pop songs, the grandmother who won't stop talking about strictly come dancing. It's something we all live with, but then remarkably when it comes round to getting presents we can't for the life of us think what to get.

Gift Grief

It's not because we're stupid that we don't know what to get for blatantly obsessed people, it's because obsessive people collect items to do with their obsession. Using our pretend family as an example; the little singer has a pink karaoke machine, several microphones and tape recorders, books on singing, DVDs on singing; she's even branched out in to computer programs for making songs and got Nintendo games that involve singing. There's nothing left is there? 

Or the football dad? He's got his favourite player's shirts, he's got more childish football stuff than a grown man should ever have and he's even got season tickets to see his team, what else is there? 

Experience Days

Okay, so there is something else you could do. It's the sort of thing you'd probably do if you were a millionaire. You could send the little singer off for singing lessons with a real teacher or even better book her in for a real recording studio session to sing her favourite song and make a cute CD.

In real life you might think that sort of thing is either impossible or impractical but times are changing. Experience Days are these simple little gift certificates packed with information that allow people to do things that they never normally could.

That means that you could give some strange obsessive person the chance to take their obsession one step further. Sound dangerous? Don't worry; it's mostly stuff like learning to cook excellent Indian food, or hang gliding, or flying a plane, or racing sail boats. 

Experience Days are basically about living a dream for real and you don't have to be a millionaire to buy one as a gift, because they can be as little as £50 or cost as much as a few hundred depending on the activity.

They can also involve one person, a couple or the whole family depending on which experience day package you choose. What's more, experience days also make excellent bargaining chips: 'you can only sing in a recording studio if you stop singing at the dinner table', for example, can be a good deal and benefit many more people than just the gift recipient.

Join 'Em

Sometimes it can be quite hard to see what other people get out of certain interests and pastimes. Some hobbies and obsessions can even be a point of contention if they prevent people from communicating. Many an argument has been had over what was going to be watched on the television or what was and was not appropriate to bring to the dinner table. For the record, dirty football boots, jarred butterflies and car parts are not.

If you find that the obsessive people in your family wear you out, or that you give them a hard time. Getting Experience Days for the whole family can be a great way to apologise for being grumpy or include other people in your weird hobby. The moral of the story really is, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

Related article: Experience Days for Daredevil Dads (Experience Days)