I very rarely buy books at all; that's what libraries are for. So what's embedded deep in my brain here is something like "at libraries, you can get whatever you want to read, for free. So if you're going to Spend Money on a book, there must be a Very Good Reason for it, a book that you not only want to read but also Have."
And bookstore gift certificates in particular throw me all haywire, because it especially feels like if I don't actually buy a book with it (and especially one I'll actually Value), then I am Disrepecting Someone's Gift. In the absence of the gift certificate I would just not buy a book at all, and get it from the library.
(But the current situation, where I can't get books from the library because I'm permanently moving away from the city, so I made a deliberate point of going to a bookstore, wasn't enough to assuage my book-buying anxiety.)
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2017-06-11 09:55 pm (UTC)And bookstore gift certificates in particular throw me all haywire, because it especially feels like if I don't actually buy a book with it (and especially one I'll actually Value), then I am Disrepecting Someone's Gift. In the absence of the gift certificate I would just not buy a book at all, and get it from the library.
(But the current situation, where I can't get books from the library because I'm permanently moving away from the city, so I made a deliberate point of going to a bookstore, wasn't enough to assuage my book-buying anxiety.)