Gift Giving

Time for me to share some more words of advice.

This time, the question is from a woman a bought a birthday gift for a man who dumped her by simply not showing up for their first date after months of correspondence. She actually wanted to know if she should still send him the gift!

I share this response because I feel the laws on gift-giving bear repeating. This is what I have to say....


Dear Ridiculous Question-Asker,

That's the terrible thing about the Y-chromosome...just when you think they have finally learned to act right, they turn out to be totally idiots just the same. Sounds like he got scared and instead behaving like a grown-up and learning to deal with his feeling of uncertainty, he chose to run and hide like a scared piece of ___(fill in the blank).

Anyway, don't you worry about that. He's gone - lesson learned - moving on.

Now about this gift...child have you lost your mind? I realize that you have no use for it, and that having it around would be a painful reminder, blah blah, but you MAY NOT even consider sending it to him for one more second! Do we reward poor behavior with gifts? Hell no. We sell that shit on eBay and buy ourselves a present with the cash.

I know you have this grand vision of yourself as a selfless martyr, willing to rise above her pain and give freely from her heart, even to the man who scorned her. Well that is a load of crap. He is not gonna come back to you because you sent him a gift. In fact, he isn't even gonna call to say thank you because he is an ungrateful pig. Instead, he's gonna throw your gift in the back of a closet, sit his worthless ass back on the couch and congratulate himself on being such a catch women just can't let him go, in between chugging beer and belching the alphabet.

Dating has many pitfalls, and folks often make mistakes, but the worst one a woman can make is reaffirming the Y's poor behavior. Not showing up is not an acceptable way to cancel a date (nor is email, text message or post-it). I mean, at least have the decency to pick up the phone and lie. All we need to hear is some sob story about your ailing mother, and we're content to wait around until our girlfriends finally have to intervene and call your bluff.

I am very serious about selling that gift online, and if you don't get any bites, donate it to charity, stick it in your neighbor's garage sale or make a bonfire in your back yard. But for the love of God, DO NOT send it to this guy. He never even so much as bought you a cocktail and you're gonna give him a gift? Honey, I wouldn't spend a dime on a man until I'd been fed, watered and taken out on the town. I mean, why buy the cow, if she'll pay you to take her?

Royally, Q

**PS- "Cow" is used in a purely metaphorical sense, and in no way relates to the size, shape, or personality of the subject;-)