I struggle with gift giving, but when it comes to buying holiday gifts for someone I’ve just started dating, I’m helpless. I think the first step is to feel the other person out. Find out if he is big into holidays by asking generic questions about holiday plans and family traditions. Depending on how excited he responds you might be able to figure out how serious he is about trading gifts.
The next step is to eliminate the thought of anything romantic or long term. Two tickets to a concert next spring might be a little over the top since that would require him to be dating you four months from now. Don’t freak him out. Keep it realistic.
Here are a few ideas for those of you out there gift shopping for your new man that won’t scare him or break your budget.
Maybe you’ve heard, maybe you haven’t. Either way it’s a nice story to read once, or multiple times. The reminder: blessings and love are all around you just need to keep your eyes open.
The story is about Juan Mann (and now many others all over the world) who in a moment of uncertainty created a cardboard sign that said “Free Hugs.” He went out on the street and held up the sign and although many people looked at him with fear, many others took him up on the offer. Now, after being banned and shunned, he’s made it perfectly acceptable to ask for hugs and is also well-known. He’s been on Oprah and has a kick-ass Web site, www.freehugscampaign.org
A friend of mine is having trouble incorporating food into her dates. It seems that either she plans for it and then is surprised to be without it, or she loses all sense when it comes to making decisions about it.
Date Number One: A young hippy neighbor invites her out on a dinner date. She’s surprised when he shows up at her apartment dressed in pressed khaki. She’s taken off guard again when he drives her 30 minutes away to a very nice restaurant she had only heard about.
At this point she feels very under dressed and nervous because the man before her is not the casual “dude” from around the corner. Now he’s this well put together grown-up with intellectual ambitions. Someone she actually has to impress.
When the waiter to take their order she is not focused and uncertain what to order. She finally decides on a steak and when asked how she would like it cooked she responded, “hot.”
He never asked her out again.
Date Number Two: Starving after a long day at work, my friend rushed to her date’s apartment all the way across town. She was supposed to be there at 6:30 for what she assumed would be dinner, but actually turned out to be coffee.
Too embarrassed to tell the man she was starving and would be willing to lick the crumbs off his plate from that morning’s breakfast, she decided to agree to go to the coffee shop. She figured she could somehow work in a biscotti or two to tide her over.
The man would not shut up and the two biscottis that she did manage to scarf down were not enough. Starved and bored, her blood sugar had dropped and again she could not focus or think clearly. She doesn’t remember the last 20 minutes of the date.
Needless to say, she never agreed to another date with him again. A girl’s gotta eat!
off his plate from that morning’s breakfast, she decided to agree to go to the coffee shop. She figured she could somehow work in a biscotti or two to tide her over.
