You know when he’s telling the story it ends, “…but it was totally worth it because she was smoking hot!”
Did you miss the posts where guys said they were upset in similar situations? Because there were a lot of them. Just because you never had “hat closure”, that doesn’t mean they guy isn’t still upset. Fifty bucks in 1999 is a pricey hat!
But hey you gave it to another boyfriend, so I guess that makes it OK.
I have a story like this from the other side. At the beginning of my sophomore year of college I went to the dept office to fill out a form. I asked a guy standing next to me if I could quickly borrow a pen. After I finished the form, the guy was gone. I ended up using that pen for the rest of my college career. There wasn’t anything particularly special about the pen, but it was free, so that counted for a lot.
Strange “memory” that I haven’t thought about in years . . . and a correction of that memory.
When I was in college, back in the 60s, I lived in a rooming house. One of my housemates borrowed a vest from me. It was part of a suit, corduroy with leather buttons. He never gave it back.
Now wait. There’s something wrong about that memory, and I just discovered what. I never had a corduroy suit with leather buttons, but one of my housemates did. I was the one who borrowed this guy’s vest and never gave it back. I don’t know what happened to it, I haven’t seen it in a couple of decades. I probably gave it away when I realized it would never again fit me.
I have no idea why I took it or why I never returned it. But at least, after almost 50 years, I’ve corrected that “memory.” The mind works in mysterious ways.
You “talked him into giving it to you.” Case closed.
I had a girl return a hat that she had taken from me about 10 years after the fact. Just received it in the mail one day with a very nice note. Hadn’t really missed it, but the gesture was nice.