I received a gift the other day from a work friend and, as she handed it to me, she assured me that it was for men.

"It is a male gift, I promise," she said.

Naturally, my curiosity was piqued and so I opened the gift right then and there. Turns out she got me a tube of expensive body wash.

Now I will be honest: I am an Ivory soap kind of guy and have never used one of those newfangled body creme thingies. Still, I was intrigued.

Maybe she saw me as some kind of 40-year-old follicularly challenged but pleasantly plump stud-muffin. I immediately gave her a hug and thanked her for the gift.

It did not dawn on me until later in the day that maybe she was simply trying to improve my hygiene. Maybe I smelled bad. That is when the paranoia started.

That same day, I had another colleague who gave me a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale mousepad. I must say that the gift was thoughtful. She knows I like good beer and she knows that I spend way too much time on the computer. Needless to say, I was happy. Then the paranoia kicked in again. Maybe she thinks that I am some kind of functional alcoholic; that all I think about is beer and work. Great, so now I am a fat, bald, smelly drunkard trapped behind a monitor.

For years I have received gifts that made absolutely no sense to me. I am a simple guy who likes to fish, golf, read novels, work with wood, and lounge around the house reading the paper until noon on Sunday mornings. Complex, I am not. So how do I explain the strange gifts that I have received over the years?

Now I am not talking about the community gift that is given to the office like the box of manapua from Libby's or the universal gift like the "I love my teacher" notepads that we faculty types often get from our students.

I am talking about the finger massager that you put on the tips of each digit to whisk away work stress. Or the espresso cups that look suspiciously like my daughter's tea set from when she was 5 years old.

I am also talking about the "freak you out" gifts that make your skin crawl.

A buddy of mine once gave me an inflatable body for hanging clothes. Designed to eliminate things like shoulder nipples, those mounds that stick out when your shirts have been on the hanger for too long, the inflatable body offers a legitimate, if somewhat macabre, solution. It mimics a real torso, thus eliminating sharp edges and the dreaded wrinkles that come with them.

Still, try explaining the plastic dummy to your wife when she comes home from work and catches you blowing it up as you stand in front of the closet in your BVDs.

I guess the real question in gift giving is this:

Do you give gifts that people want or do you give gifts that speak to your heart?

Or maybe, just maybe, you give gifts that you believe will make a difference in the life of others.

I hope and pray it is not the latter, because the message is clear: Put down the bottle, pick up the soap and on a cold, lonely night, there is nothing better than ... clean, wrinkle-free clothes.

Michael C. DeMattos is on faculty at the University of Hawai'i School of Social Work. He lives in Kane'ohe with his wife, daughter and two dogs.