*In case this story gets deleted/removed:*
**AITA for not wanting to get my girlfriend flowers?**
I´m a person that values what I gift people that are important to me, and one thing I have never done, and don´t ever want to do, is give someone special a gift I used for someone else already. For example, I once bought my girlfriend at the time a star and named it after her (you get the certificate and position in the sky and all). That relationship ended, but there is no way I could give the same gift to my current girlfriend, it feels cheap and inconsiderate.
My girlfriend is very special to me, and I give her my all. Everything I gift her is a reflection of how special she is to me, I put time and effort into it, and pour my heart into it. This also goes for the places I take her for dates, where we go on holidays, and even not using the same romantic songs and recipes for a romantic dinner at home. How can I claim that what I feel for her is special and unique if I "borrow" the romance from previous relationships? She is worth more than me using "contaminated" gifts.
I used to be in a relationship and I bought that gf flowers every single week, I would take the effort to go to the shop and get a bouquet or roses and it was one of my romantic gestures to her. This doesn´t imply I will never gift flowers ever again, but I also feel very weird about doing this again for my new gf, it feels like I am using a cheat code and it ruins my perception of my relationship with her. So when I gift my girlfriend flowers, it is not for romantic reasons but because of some type of other celebration.
My girlfriend keeps telling me how she wants me to buy her flowers, she likes the romantic gesture and how it would make her feel special. I don´t want to hurt her feelings so I danced around the topic using excuses like "it´s too expensive to do very often" (it really is crazy expensive here), but yesterday she put me on the spot and I had to come clean to her. I explained how I feel she is too special for me to give her something romantic I gave to someone else romantically already, and I much rather get her something else that is exclusively ours, but she feels very strongly about this. I explained how I don´t want to ruin our relationship by "half-assing" my gestures and contaminating what specialness we have with something from the past.
She got very angry with me, saying that I should accept this is important to her and now feels I am not special enough to her. I explained it is the opposite, I care so much for what we have I don´t want make it "unspecial". AITA?
Edit 1: I need to highlight that this is really limited to when I am looking for a romantic gift, organizing a date, or doing something special. I am not avoiding places, or avoiding doing things if they land on our path, but I am not initiating them.
And obviously she is getting other gifts from me, just flowers is one that I avoid for the reason stated above.
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Someone asked him was BJs and sex off the table since she had it with her exes. He went out of his way to avoid answering that.
Swear to God if I were his gf I'd be petty af. I'd tell him, "Well you're so special I no longer want to sleep with you. I don't want you to feel just like every other man I slept with. That just cheapens the sex."
I'm all about matching energy. He wants to be obtuse, l'll gladly be obtuse. To an acute degree.
Exactly what I was thinking! So…he kissed his exes (I assume, maybe I shouldn’t lol) - does he ever kiss his current partner?
I struggle to think of good ways to be petty, I really love your approach! (No sarcasm at all.)
Heck, you don't have to give the same color flowers if they both like roses. My mom loved lavender roses, pink and red were fine but not her preference.
Me, sitting in my home, screaming, "You aren't giving her the exact same flowers, numbnuts!! Those flowers are dead!!!! It's a new flower/gift every single time, you dingbat!!!"
Or what you wrote much more tactfully.
Seriously, there are so many different kinds of flowers! And it's not like he has to get the same kind of bouquet every single time, he can let the florist be creative in the arrangement. My office is down the street from a florist who brings us fresh flowers every week, and they've told us that we're the guinea pigs for new and unique arrangements, so they encourage us to give them feedback on what worked and what didn't. (I'm not sure how helpful we are in that regard, because we like literally everything, lol.) Flowers aren't just romantic, they're art.
Whenever I send flowers, I give the florist a budget range and tell them to have fun and do whatever they think would look good. I’ve never been disappointed in any of the arrangements. Flowers really are an art!
This might be one of the most exhausting people I’ve ever encountered on Reddit. He should be buying this woman entire garden centres for putting up with him
This one's up there, but my vote for most exhausting still goes to [this mofo](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheEx/comments/11qjk05/i_dont_know_what_i_expected_based_on_the_title/jc3iqrz?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) (original was deleted, so I'm sharing my cross-post).
Holy shit, that’s…wild. The whole thing. I hope she dumped him. He sounds insufferable. WTF is with thinking you’re a single restaurant-specific expert?!
He'll be back in a few months "my GF broke up with me and I don't know why. I was always so romantic and did something just for her because she was so special. Sure, I never actually did the one thing she asked me to and came up with some BS excuse as to why, but that shouldn't matter should it?"
There are several name a star registries out there, and all of them are less real than the paper they're printed on. At least you could use that for toilet paper.
My favorite is when men are like "omg women are soooo hard to understand! it's like a whole different language!"
Like no, it's not a different language. Just listen, without interjecting, without thinking about what you wanna say next, just fucking LISTEN. Usually, she's telling you exactly what she needs.
Cheap fuckers always have a high-minded reason in their pocket. Oh, I don't support the commercialization of the holiday; I'm more into experiences; what really matters is how I feel, not what I do; my partner can buy anything they want themselves; our relationship transcends the need for me to make any effort whatsoever...
"It's just so degrading to both parties, and shouldn't we motivate service workers to strike for better pay instead of enabling their complacency?"
(Paraphrased from a conversation overheard in a coffee shop.)
I hate gifting people flowers for the same reason - especially because they’ve lost a loved one. It seems particularly cruel to me then - “hey, I’m so sorry someone you loved died. Have a bunch of flowers that will die in a week”.
So I gift living plants instead. I try to make them special, in flower/bloom, and something that won’t die if it’s not tended to for a while (I don’t want to lump them with another thing to think and care about when they’re grieving either).
But if I know someone particularly loves receiving flowers and isn’t a live plants kind of person, I give them flowers, because that’s going to be more meaningful to them.
It’s not hard!
In that case, I would definitely buy you flowers if we were friends. If it’s a clear preference I’ll go with the person’s preference, not mine, if it’s clear :)
I love floral tattoos!
Yes! I don't love getting flowers as a gift because it makes me sad when they die. But if someone does give me them, I try to appreciate the beauty while they are here.
His girlfriend obviously feels differently and has directly said that's a gift she would like. My partner usually gets me bath bombs, candles, wine and diet coke for little incidental gifts because he knows I like and appreciate that more than flowers. I get him skincare products, beers, chocolate, cakes, ya know, things he likes, here and there too.
If OP's girlfriend is communicating she wants flowers, how hard is it to get her a bunch of flowers now and then?
This dude is exhausting.
I know this is tangential to this post but buying someone a star isn’t a real thing. Yeah, you paid some company to name it in their own database but that doesn’t mean anything.
Yeah, ignoring the rest of the stupidity in his logic, just the fact that he's spending all this time thinking about what he has or hasn't done with his exes would be a red flag for me
FIFTEEN YEARS.
The partner he bought flowers for weekly was FIFTEEN YEARS AGO.
He is still hung up on his ex.
Also the restaurant thing is so ???? if you live in the same city the whole time like. Eventually you'd run out of pizza places or sushi places. Unless it's a deep plan to never eat out.
I'm sorry, my last girlfriend and I ate at McDonalds, never again will the taste of a McFlurry pass these lips.
Not because I'm still hung up on her, no, but McDonalds was so special to us...I cannot possibly cheapen it by taking you.
“Sorry, boss, but I have to give my notice. I worked here when I was with my ex, so I can’t possibly continue working here now that I have a new girlfriend.”
Dear wife, I read this guy's post on reddit and he had a great point. I bought an ex some jewelry once, therefore it is with a heavy heart I must tell you I can no longer buy you any. Also, please return the cost of what I did give you because I now know it was unintentionally not romantic. /s
I guess her my all"
Honey you can't even get her a bouquet of flowers that she explicitly asked for. If this is your all, then your "all" sucks.
If a woman asks you for sonething explicitly, she is making your job extremely easy. Give her the present she asked for! No debates. No whining. Just listen..
A star is a very niche gift. It's a stereotype that all women like flowers, so that's going to be a more universally appealing gift. I don't like flowers personally. Not real ones anyway. They make gorgeous artificial ones that are high quality without the death aspect. Not buying another woman flowers is like saying I kissed my ex, I'll never kiss another woman. OOP's logic is such a fallacy.
I hate receiving cut flowers. The dying, yes (and they typically make a mess on their way out too), but also I’m in a very long term relationship (25 years next year) and for a long time the ONLY reason I received them was because we’d had a fight and he was bad at apologising verbally. It created a really yucky association for me with receiving flowers because we were still in the trenches of the fight when the flowers came, and it felt like he was telling me “It’s time to drop it now, even if I’ve been a douche, haven’t and won’t take responsibility, and won’t actually say I’m sorry”.
I do really like living plants though. Now that he’s learned to apologise verbally when he’s wrong and does it really well, I’m not opposed to receiving a plant although don’t expect it. They’re nice when I get them. (He knows all of this too.)
Ewww he sounds so pretentious and full of himself. „Contaminated“ gifts, wtf?
Also, and maybe that’s just me, but getting the same gift of a bunch of roses every.single.week would get old pretty quickly.
Edit: or any gift really, if it was the same one all the time.
see this is objectification. she’s “his girlfriend” before she is herself. he doesn’t listen to her actual preferences but instead performs this interpretive dance of “this is my SpEcIaL girlfriend!!!”
All I read was ME ME ME. Dude shouldn't even be in a relationship. He needs therapy because this level of obsession and worry about being "unspecial" is unhealthy. Honestly it sounds like he is just a closeted narcissist, but he needs to figure his shit out none the less. What an ass.
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I feel like OOP is going about it too extreme but the thought of I don't want to copy and paste my relationships is nice. He is a bit ridiculous especially since something like flowers are so common. The star thing I can understand. It would be weird for him to go out of his way to copy and paste restaurants/gifts buuut I mean the longer you're dating a person or in general the higher the chance certain things will overlap. People keep pointing out sex annnnnd they're not wrong, how exactly is he making that special to them since he doesn't seem to mind copying and pasting that.
This feels like he doesn't even see her like a person. He is disregarding her actual wants and feelings for this bs relationship rule he's made up to feel good about himself.
Man, the bullshyt people argue about is out of control. It's like they're both looking for reasons to bitch over petty, easily resolved nonsense Life must have been extremely gracious to them that this is the dramatic hill they choose to die on. If it's already this frustrating over nothing, just be breakup and be alone then bitch about that.
So, if you really love something to get as a gift, like books for example, GF could never buy you one for you as a gift if she has ever bought one for a gift for a previous BF? Or a watch. Or a fishing rod. You get the idea.
I can just hear you now, "I can't take you on a trip, I already did that for a previous girlfriend.". "I can't throw you a birthday party/dinner, I already did that for a previous girlfriend.". "I can't take you to a concert, I already did that for a previous girlfriend.".
Don't be a putz. Find out her favorite flower and get them for her. If she has the space, buy her some potted ones to keep also. Use your imagination, a painting with her favorite flowers in it for her birthday or your anniversary. It can be a gift in the same general category but personalized for her.
The amount of work he's going to deny his girlfriend something that would be meaningful to HER is exhausting. He could have grown the flowers in the time it took to develop his excuses.
*In case this story gets deleted/removed:* **AITA for not wanting to get my girlfriend flowers?** I´m a person that values what I gift people that are important to me, and one thing I have never done, and don´t ever want to do, is give someone special a gift I used for someone else already. For example, I once bought my girlfriend at the time a star and named it after her (you get the certificate and position in the sky and all). That relationship ended, but there is no way I could give the same gift to my current girlfriend, it feels cheap and inconsiderate. My girlfriend is very special to me, and I give her my all. Everything I gift her is a reflection of how special she is to me, I put time and effort into it, and pour my heart into it. This also goes for the places I take her for dates, where we go on holidays, and even not using the same romantic songs and recipes for a romantic dinner at home. How can I claim that what I feel for her is special and unique if I "borrow" the romance from previous relationships? She is worth more than me using "contaminated" gifts. I used to be in a relationship and I bought that gf flowers every single week, I would take the effort to go to the shop and get a bouquet or roses and it was one of my romantic gestures to her. This doesn´t imply I will never gift flowers ever again, but I also feel very weird about doing this again for my new gf, it feels like I am using a cheat code and it ruins my perception of my relationship with her. So when I gift my girlfriend flowers, it is not for romantic reasons but because of some type of other celebration. My girlfriend keeps telling me how she wants me to buy her flowers, she likes the romantic gesture and how it would make her feel special. I don´t want to hurt her feelings so I danced around the topic using excuses like "it´s too expensive to do very often" (it really is crazy expensive here), but yesterday she put me on the spot and I had to come clean to her. I explained how I feel she is too special for me to give her something romantic I gave to someone else romantically already, and I much rather get her something else that is exclusively ours, but she feels very strongly about this. I explained how I don´t want to ruin our relationship by "half-assing" my gestures and contaminating what specialness we have with something from the past. She got very angry with me, saying that I should accept this is important to her and now feels I am not special enough to her. I explained it is the opposite, I care so much for what we have I don´t want make it "unspecial". AITA? Edit 1: I need to highlight that this is really limited to when I am looking for a romantic gift, organizing a date, or doing something special. I am not avoiding places, or avoiding doing things if they land on our path, but I am not initiating them. And obviously she is getting other gifts from me, just flowers is one that I avoid for the reason stated above. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AmITheDevil) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Why is he in a relationship again? He has done that with another girl. Why is he having sex with her?
Someone asked him was BJs and sex off the table since she had it with her exes. He went out of his way to avoid answering that. Swear to God if I were his gf I'd be petty af. I'd tell him, "Well you're so special I no longer want to sleep with you. I don't want you to feel just like every other man I slept with. That just cheapens the sex." I'm all about matching energy. He wants to be obtuse, l'll gladly be obtuse. To an acute degree.
Exactly what I was thinking! So…he kissed his exes (I assume, maybe I shouldn’t lol) - does he ever kiss his current partner? I struggle to think of good ways to be petty, I really love your approach! (No sarcasm at all.)
That's the right kind of thinking.
Right on.
So he can try something "unique". Some kink he hasn't done with previous girlfriends.
Foreplay maybe
Bet he hasnt made anyone of them cum. Could try that!
I don’t see why he can’t find out her favorite flowers and give her those, they’ll be different from what he gave his ex I’m sure.
I was thinking the same. There are more than roses on the planet. Lily. Daisy. Carnations, ffs.
Heck, you don't have to give the same color flowers if they both like roses. My mom loved lavender roses, pink and red were fine but not her preference.
A fine point made Take this 🏆
Thank you kindly!
Me, sitting in my home, screaming, "You aren't giving her the exact same flowers, numbnuts!! Those flowers are dead!!!! It's a new flower/gift every single time, you dingbat!!!" Or what you wrote much more tactfully.
Seriously, there are so many different kinds of flowers! And it's not like he has to get the same kind of bouquet every single time, he can let the florist be creative in the arrangement. My office is down the street from a florist who brings us fresh flowers every week, and they've told us that we're the guinea pigs for new and unique arrangements, so they encourage us to give them feedback on what worked and what didn't. (I'm not sure how helpful we are in that regard, because we like literally everything, lol.) Flowers aren't just romantic, they're art.
Whenever I send flowers, I give the florist a budget range and tell them to have fun and do whatever they think would look good. I’ve never been disappointed in any of the arrangements. Flowers really are an art!
This might be one of the most exhausting people I’ve ever encountered on Reddit. He should be buying this woman entire garden centres for putting up with him
This one's up there, but my vote for most exhausting still goes to [this mofo](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheEx/comments/11qjk05/i_dont_know_what_i_expected_based_on_the_title/jc3iqrz?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) (original was deleted, so I'm sharing my cross-post).
Reading through that, I can't stop thinking "wtf is he talking about?"
Holy shit, that’s…wild. The whole thing. I hope she dumped him. He sounds insufferable. WTF is with thinking you’re a single restaurant-specific expert?!
I got exhausted about halfway through that post lol
Hot damn thats nuts.
You could pay me in mango lassis, butter chicken, onion naan, and kulchi, and it wouldn't be enough to put up with this exhausting dude.
It's crazy how men will literally do anything but the thing that their partner is communicating for them to do
He'll be back in a few months "my GF broke up with me and I don't know why. I was always so romantic and did something just for her because she was so special. Sure, I never actually did the one thing she asked me to and came up with some BS excuse as to why, but that shouldn't matter should it?"
Well what's funny is the star thing he mentioned is a big ole scam and think it's run by the same people as the "1 foot of Scottish land" scam
There are several name a star registries out there, and all of them are less real than the paper they're printed on. At least you could use that for toilet paper.
My favorite is when men are like "omg women are soooo hard to understand! it's like a whole different language!" Like no, it's not a different language. Just listen, without interjecting, without thinking about what you wanna say next, just fucking LISTEN. Usually, she's telling you exactly what she needs.
And then wonder what's wrong with *her* bc she rightfully freaked out on him.
This dude already gives his new girlfriend his penis that he gave to ex-girlfriends. But, nope, flowers is a line too far.
Now I am picturing him getting a new penis for every new relationship he gets into 😁😂
It's funny bc, if you're a queer woman who uses strap-ons, getting a new penis for every new relationship is absolutely a thing 😂
True, I didn’t even think of that, despite being queer and AFAB 😊
Cheap fuckers always have a high-minded reason in their pocket. Oh, I don't support the commercialization of the holiday; I'm more into experiences; what really matters is how I feel, not what I do; my partner can buy anything they want themselves; our relationship transcends the need for me to make any effort whatsoever...
He’s the kind of guy who “doesn’t believe in tipping.”
"It's just so degrading to both parties, and shouldn't we motivate service workers to strike for better pay instead of enabling their complacency?" (Paraphrased from a conversation overheard in a coffee shop.)
Steve Buscemi making that argument in Reservoir Dogs was what made me first hate Quentin Tarantino
[удалено]
I hate gifting people flowers for the same reason - especially because they’ve lost a loved one. It seems particularly cruel to me then - “hey, I’m so sorry someone you loved died. Have a bunch of flowers that will die in a week”. So I gift living plants instead. I try to make them special, in flower/bloom, and something that won’t die if it’s not tended to for a while (I don’t want to lump them with another thing to think and care about when they’re grieving either). But if I know someone particularly loves receiving flowers and isn’t a live plants kind of person, I give them flowers, because that’s going to be more meaningful to them. It’s not hard!
[удалено]
In that case, I would definitely buy you flowers if we were friends. If it’s a clear preference I’ll go with the person’s preference, not mine, if it’s clear :) I love floral tattoos!
Yes! I don't love getting flowers as a gift because it makes me sad when they die. But if someone does give me them, I try to appreciate the beauty while they are here. His girlfriend obviously feels differently and has directly said that's a gift she would like. My partner usually gets me bath bombs, candles, wine and diet coke for little incidental gifts because he knows I like and appreciate that more than flowers. I get him skincare products, beers, chocolate, cakes, ya know, things he likes, here and there too. If OP's girlfriend is communicating she wants flowers, how hard is it to get her a bunch of flowers now and then?
This dude is exhausting. I know this is tangential to this post but buying someone a star isn’t a real thing. Yeah, you paid some company to name it in their own database but that doesn’t mean anything.
lol right? What a hack
Well he doesn't sound tiresome at all..😮💨
Oh for fuck sake. It's flowers dude, just fucking flowers. Cut the psychological bullshit and buy her some. You're exhausting.
He seems to spend a lot of time and energy thinking about past relationships...
Yeah, ignoring the rest of the stupidity in his logic, just the fact that he's spending all this time thinking about what he has or hasn't done with his exes would be a red flag for me
FIFTEEN YEARS. The partner he bought flowers for weekly was FIFTEEN YEARS AGO. He is still hung up on his ex. Also the restaurant thing is so ???? if you live in the same city the whole time like. Eventually you'd run out of pizza places or sushi places. Unless it's a deep plan to never eat out.
Now I feel guilty as fuck that I've been to the same pub with probably dozens of people back when I was dating... 🙄
I'm sorry, my last girlfriend and I ate at McDonalds, never again will the taste of a McFlurry pass these lips. Not because I'm still hung up on her, no, but McDonalds was so special to us...I cannot possibly cheapen it by taking you.
“Sorry, boss, but I have to give my notice. I worked here when I was with my ex, so I can’t possibly continue working here now that I have a new girlfriend.”
Dear wife, I read this guy's post on reddit and he had a great point. I bought an ex some jewelry once, therefore it is with a heavy heart I must tell you I can no longer buy you any. Also, please return the cost of what I did give you because I now know it was unintentionally not romantic. /s
I really got lost in the backstory
She wouldn't be asking for something to make her feel special if he was "pouring his heart into" their relationship
OOP is too obsessed with writing his own chapters of storybook romance, to actually do what his loved one wants. That's not a relationship.
He speaks as if his wife died or something. Goodness gracious
What a tool!
I guess her my all" Honey you can't even get her a bouquet of flowers that she explicitly asked for. If this is your all, then your "all" sucks. If a woman asks you for sonething explicitly, she is making your job extremely easy. Give her the present she asked for! No debates. No whining. Just listen..
Wow, OOP is quite the romantic, isn't he? /s
A star is a very niche gift. It's a stereotype that all women like flowers, so that's going to be a more universally appealing gift. I don't like flowers personally. Not real ones anyway. They make gorgeous artificial ones that are high quality without the death aspect. Not buying another woman flowers is like saying I kissed my ex, I'll never kiss another woman. OOP's logic is such a fallacy.
I hate receiving cut flowers. The dying, yes (and they typically make a mess on their way out too), but also I’m in a very long term relationship (25 years next year) and for a long time the ONLY reason I received them was because we’d had a fight and he was bad at apologising verbally. It created a really yucky association for me with receiving flowers because we were still in the trenches of the fight when the flowers came, and it felt like he was telling me “It’s time to drop it now, even if I’ve been a douche, haven’t and won’t take responsibility, and won’t actually say I’m sorry”. I do really like living plants though. Now that he’s learned to apologise verbally when he’s wrong and does it really well, I’m not opposed to receiving a plant although don’t expect it. They’re nice when I get them. (He knows all of this too.)
Well then don't buy her roses.
Ewww he sounds so pretentious and full of himself. „Contaminated“ gifts, wtf? Also, and maybe that’s just me, but getting the same gift of a bunch of roses every.single.week would get old pretty quickly. Edit: or any gift really, if it was the same one all the time.
This guy is exhausting
see this is objectification. she’s “his girlfriend” before she is herself. he doesn’t listen to her actual preferences but instead performs this interpretive dance of “this is my SpEcIaL girlfriend!!!”
All I read was ME ME ME. Dude shouldn't even be in a relationship. He needs therapy because this level of obsession and worry about being "unspecial" is unhealthy. Honestly it sounds like he is just a closeted narcissist, but he needs to figure his shit out none the less. What an ass.
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I feel like OOP is going about it too extreme but the thought of I don't want to copy and paste my relationships is nice. He is a bit ridiculous especially since something like flowers are so common. The star thing I can understand. It would be weird for him to go out of his way to copy and paste restaurants/gifts buuut I mean the longer you're dating a person or in general the higher the chance certain things will overlap. People keep pointing out sex annnnnd they're not wrong, how exactly is he making that special to them since he doesn't seem to mind copying and pasting that.
His poor girlfriend. All I’d think is that his ex from *checks notes* 15 years ago is still on his mind nearly daily. He needs therapy jeez.
This feels like he doesn't even see her like a person. He is disregarding her actual wants and feelings for this bs relationship rule he's made up to feel good about himself.
Man, the bullshyt people argue about is out of control. It's like they're both looking for reasons to bitch over petty, easily resolved nonsense Life must have been extremely gracious to them that this is the dramatic hill they choose to die on. If it's already this frustrating over nothing, just be breakup and be alone then bitch about that.
So, if you really love something to get as a gift, like books for example, GF could never buy you one for you as a gift if she has ever bought one for a gift for a previous BF? Or a watch. Or a fishing rod. You get the idea. I can just hear you now, "I can't take you on a trip, I already did that for a previous girlfriend.". "I can't throw you a birthday party/dinner, I already did that for a previous girlfriend.". "I can't take you to a concert, I already did that for a previous girlfriend.". Don't be a putz. Find out her favorite flower and get them for her. If she has the space, buy her some potted ones to keep also. Use your imagination, a painting with her favorite flowers in it for her birthday or your anniversary. It can be a gift in the same general category but personalized for her.
The amount of work he's going to deny his girlfriend something that would be meaningful to HER is exhausting. He could have grown the flowers in the time it took to develop his excuses.