I just wanted to thank you for your long and well-thought-out post, I appreciate it!
You sure? I will gladly buy you concert tickets in exchange for your ten million dollars and my car. Give it some thought – I am a reasonable man.
[quote=“Green_Cymbeline, post:95, topic:632297”]
It’s not like that. I didn’t feel he “owed” me anything. It was that once he started getting petty and bitter and saying I owed him to take delivery of what was originally a gift, I said, OK, if you can act that way, so can I. …[.quote]
You didn’t address the other situations, which didn’t involve birthday/Christmas/other significant gift giving occasions but did involve joint plans with a breakup happening between the payment and the event. Would you really think that the person who paid for the honeymoon , or the prom tickets/limo was obligated to take the original person if a breakup happened in between? Because you can’t justify both tickets being your gift- one was clearly for him to use.What if these same tickets had been bought three months later after you have received a different birthday gift?
I think he should’ve definitely given you your ticket, at least. That was your birthday present; it was just chance that he didn’t print out the tickets and give them to you in your birthday card, or whatever. The other ticket is more of a grey area, since it was supposed to be for him - but I agree that the basic decent thing would’ve been for him to say, ‘Those were your birthday present - enjoy them.’
But how on earth are you suddenly not bound to be honourable just because he didn’t act honourably? Do you seriously let other people’s moral standards - especially when you believe they’re all wrong - dictate yours? If it wasn’t OK for him to act vindictively (which I agree it wasn’t), how on earth is it OK for you to act exactly the same way? ‘But he STARTED it!!!’ isn’t a morally acceptable argument for anyone over the age of six.
Moral adults have their own personal moral standards. They don’t ditch them just because someone else doesn’t live up to them, and then put the responsibility for their own bad behaviour on the other person.
The moral thing is to act the way that *you *consider moral. Not to say, ‘Well, HE didn’t, so I don’t have to either, nah nah nah!’
The other thing worth considering is that it really sucks to get dumped, and the dumper, according to all recognized authorities in etiquette, is allowed a minor measure of dickitude in response. Nothing big, no stalking or smashing windows or anything like that, but a little bit of petulance and pettiness, that’s kind of to be expected, and if someone manages not to be the least bit petty after being dumped, they’re a freakin’ saint.
Not giving you the tickets may or may not be petty. But if it is petty, it’s only a tiny bit petty. Telling someone, “I’m dumping you–and oh yeah, that Christmas present you offered me, I’m still waiting on delivery,” is not only petty, it’s also pettiness-by-dumper, a sin far surpassing an equivalent pettiness-by-dumpee.
What’s funnier is this is her standard MO.
Check out the “Greg” thread (here) where she CANNOT let go of the fact that “Greg”'s ex-wife spending “Greg’s” child support money on stuff like a house is also helping “Greg”'s ex’s boyfriend and three other kids.
Over and over, she goes on and on and on about “right”, “justice”, “honorable” and every time she comes back to the $$$$$ aspect of it.
Bluntly, her posts imply selfishness of a really astonishing degree and an unhealthy interest in money uber alles.
Exactly the same pattern. “All I care about is justice and faaaaaaairness. Now what about the money?”
And to answer the OP
- He never gave you the gift.
- Unless you offered to straight-up trade him the hockey tickets for The Wall tickets, he owes you nothing.
- He owes you nothing, but you owe him $100 from offering to pay him for the tickets and then giving one away.
- In the future, perhaps you should just insist that future boyfriends give you cash and you’ll write them a check for an equal value when exchanging presents. Won’t be romantic, but it’ll reduce the drama about four billion percent.
Stop saying stuff I want to say before I do!!!
You purchased $300 tickets for his December birthday.
He purchased the disputed $400 tickets as a Christmas gift.
What did you get him for Christmas?
What did he get you for your birthday?
Just curious.
Wrong. I’m selfish? For those who don’t want to read through that long thread, it was about how I was upset that my boyfriend’s kids’ stepfather was convicted for CHILD MOLESTATION and that their mother continued to defend the molester stepfather and kept the kids in the house with him. I spent years advocating on behalf of kids not my own because I cared about them. And I’m selfish?? It wasn’t about money, that was only a peripheral issue in the story because my boyfriend had spent $20,000 fighting for custody and he finally ran out of money and couldn’t save them. But the story was about WHY he was fighting for custody.
You don’t get it. Neither story was about money. I am as non-materialistic as one can be. The “Greg” issue was about kids being abused. The tickets issue is about someone being a vengeful dick.
The Greg story, I can’t comment on. But in this story, from what you’ve told us, your boyfriend comes across less poorly than you–and that’s from how you tell the story. He was a bit sulky after you broke up with him; you tried to rip him off, using a pretty weak rationalization.
I honestly don’t remember.
I get that that is your opinion, but I think he ripped me off. There are others in this thread who agree with me, and probably others who don’t want to jump in and face the naysayer’s beat down.
And for chrissakes, I fking paid the guy the rest of the money, didn’t you see where I said that several times? Give me a fking break. I paid the money. And he is still a cheap bitter vengeful asshole and I’m glad I got to see this genuine side of him.
Yeah, I saw that–that’s why I said you tried to rip him off. That attempt occurred when you paid him $100 less than the agreed-on value of the ticket. He called you on that attempted ripoff, and you tried again to justify it by coming here, where you got an overwhelmingly negative response to your attempt.
Nothing in what you’ve told us about him makes him sound cheap or bitter. He might be a tiny bit vengeful, but only a tiny bit. Your actions, however, are really cheap and petty, and your willingness to pay him only so that you can metaphorically spit on him at the same time isn’t the least bit noble. You don’t get brownie points for deciding not to renege on a deal after all. And he doesn’t get asshole points for holding you to your deal.
The whole reason he is doing this is because he is bitter and butthurt over me breaking up with him. That’s clear. It makes him look pathetic, especially that he’s making such a huge deal 8 months after the fact.
And so what?
He might be bitter over the breakup, but guess what? That’s the dumpee’s prerogative, and your calling him butthurt is NOT your prerogative. Your insistence on doing so reflects poorly on you.
As for who’s making a huge deal, you’re the one who pursued tickets after the breakup, which is a pretty petty action to take: the non-petty course would have been to write them off, or even send him a note saying, “I know you bought those for us, but I hope you’re able to find someone else to go to the show with! If you’re not, and if you’d like to go as friends, I’ll keep the date open.” Had you done that, you actually would have gotten the brownie points. But you pursued them, pettily, and when he allowed you to have them at fair market value instead of telling you to kiss off, he declined to be vengeful. He decided to deal with you as a reasonable adult. Was he correct to do so?
You then made it an even bigger deal by trying to stiff him on the agreed-upon price.
He doesn’t look the least bit pathetic.
Just a thought: Next time just put “Dopers please validate me” if you actually don’t want honest opinions. When you lead out with:
Then some crazy posters will get the idea that you actually want their opinion.
I know, people are weird.
In the other thread you had mentioned that this guy was very low paid and broke. And also that you had resumed working after an extended illness not long before. I wonder if, after you gave such an extravagant birthday present despite the financial strain, he felt obligated to respond in kind. Maybe he could even see the writing on the wall (no pun intended) and the tickets were a last ditch attempt to splash out for you. Then when you add in the fact that you said you’d give him $400, then tried to only give him 3, I don’t know. He doesn’t sound babyish and butthurt to me. Just, well, normal, really.
This entire thread is about money. Your OP is about money. You didn’t start a thread saying “My ex boyfriend hurt my feelings by taking back a gift he had given me” or the like. No, you started a thread talking about money, the money he spent, the money you spent, the money he was trying to get for the tickets, the money you offered for the tickets, the money you sent for the tickets, the money you don’t want to send for the tickets, the money, the money, the money.
…are you even hot?
Actually, that’s some other thread. Your concern for the kids slows down around post 62 and your remaining posts in the next 300 or so posts become more and more about the $$$$
I’m not talking about the whole “Greg” story-I don’t remember most of the other threads–I’m talking about that particular thread where your main concern after about post 62 was the $$$$$.
The other thing I’m noticing is everything is someone else’s fault with you. The bestest friend ever–who might or might not be gay, I don’t know—who only wanted to spend the part of New Year’s Eve with you when you were holding a party and would rather go to another friends party when you went bar-hopping? All his fault, none yours.
Saint “Greg”'s fight with his ex-wife? ALL her fault, none his.
This case? He’s being “a cheap bitter vengeful asshole” (who should totally buy you a present, so you come out even-stevenies) and you’re a poor, put-on, ill-done-by innocent, straight out of a Bronte novel. 