Home/Digital Gifts/For Your Boyfriend

Digital gifts for your boyfriend

Including the hardest version of the problem: the one who says he does not want anything and means it, right up until something shows up that proves you were paying attention. Nine ideas, and how to hand over a gift that has no weight.

Line drawing of a game controller and an envelope side by side, with a small pink heart above them

"I don't want anything" is not the whole sentence

The full version is usually one of two things: he does not want you spending money on him, or he does not want to create the work of choosing. Both of those rule out the expensive object and rule in the cheap thing that clearly took attention.

Which is lucky, because that is exactly what a digital gift is good at. The letter costs about a dollar and takes an hour. The wishlisted game costs a sale price and takes knowing the list existed.

Nine digital gifts for a boyfriend

Line drawing of a person looking at a wishlist on a screen, with one item marked in pink
  1. 01

    The game that has been on his wishlist for a year

    Steam shows you the wishlist of anyone who made theirs public, and the seasonal sales land in late June and late December, when a wishlisted game often drops by half. It arrives in his library with a note you write. Knowing what was on the list is most of the gift.

  2. 02

    Credit inside the game he already plays

    For someone who opens the same game every night, in-game currency or the skin he has been circling beats a new game he will never install. Ask once, casually, a month before, and he will tell you exactly what it is.

  3. 03

    A year of the subscription he pays monthly

    Look at what is already leaving his account and buy the annual plan, which is almost always cheaper. Zero romance, genuinely useful, and he will think about it every month it does not get charged.

  4. 04

    A letter at its own link

    This is the one guys who say they want nothing tend to keep. One message on a private page, at a link that does not expire. Write six specific things instead of one general thing. Not "you are the best" but the thing he did in October that you have not stopped thinking about. We make this one.

    Write one now, free to startarrow_forward
  5. 05

    The tool for the hobby he actually does

    A preset pack, a plugin, a sample library, a paid tier of the app he uses for the thing he does on weekends. Specific to the hobby, which means you have to know the hobby. That is the point.

  6. 06

    An audiobook of the book he will never sit down to read

    Works for the person who says he does not read and then listens to four hours of podcast a day. Pick the one he has mentioned, not the one you think he should want.

  7. 07

    A page for your song and your photos

    If there is a song that belongs to the two of you, it can have a page: up to five photos with captions, the day you started counting live, the song playing underneath, and a QR code you can print and frame. We make this one too.

    See what the page looks likearrow_forward
  8. 08

    A shared album of the year, already filled

    Not an empty invite, which is homework. Sixty photos in chronological order, five of them captioned with the thing that actually happened that day.

  9. 09

    A course on the skill he keeps saying he will learn

    Guitar, video editing, a language, welding. If he has said it four times this year, he is telling you what to buy. Send the login with one line about why you think he would be good at it.

Seven of those nine are somebody else's product. The two we build are the letter at its own link and the page for your song.

What to avoid with someone who downplays gifts

Three things backfire specifically on this personality, and none of them are about taste.

  • Anything that needs an account he does not already have. You have handed him a chore wrapped as a present.
  • A subscription that renews silently, which becomes his problem to cancel in eleven months.
  • A gift with an audience. Someone who says he wants nothing is often saying he does not want a scene. Give it to him alone.

Common questions

He says he does not want anything. What do I do?

Believe the first half and ignore the second. What he usually means is that he does not want you spending money, or that choosing is work he does not want to create for you. That rules out the expensive object and rules in the thing that costs almost nothing and clearly took attention: the letter, the wishlisted game, the thing he mentioned once.

Are digital gifts for men a cop-out?

A gift card is. A wishlisted game bought during a sale with a note attached is not, and neither is a letter listing six specific things. The test is whether the gift could have gone to anybody. If it could only have gone to him, the format stops mattering.

What is a good digital gift under five dollars?

A letter at its own link, a page for your song, an indie game during a seasonal sale, or an ebook he mentioned. All four land under five dollars and none of them read as cheap.

We are long distance. What works best?

Anything that arrives on time across a time zone. Schedule it for his morning rather than yours, be on a call when he opens it even if muted, and send one thing instead of five. A letter he rereads beats a folder he scrolls once.

How do I make a link feel like a gift?

Give it a surface. Print the QR code and slip it inside a card, write the link by hand on the back of a photo, or put it in a small box with nothing else in it. The object is the doorway; the page is the gift.

Keep reading

Write the one he will keep

Fifteen minutes, from your phone, at a link that does not expire. Start writing and pay only if you want to send it.

favoriteStart the letter

No account required