Here’s a question that’s been bugging me for ages.
You’re out on a date. An excellent date, with good food and great chemistry. Everything is going well, and youu and your date are relaxing, maybe ordering another glass of wine to toast the moment.
Then you raise your glass to begin the toast, look deeply into the glass and…catch the reflection of a guy bearing down on you with a HUGE wicker basket full of red and yellow and white roses.
So what’s your next move?
Are you a hero for buying your date a flower? Or do you look like a sap and a pushover for buying a ridiculously overpriced token that probably won’t last to the end of the evening?
I personally always squirm when the “Rose Guy” comes by. I always want to have it both ways…to get a rose to wave at all the other girls whose dates “didn’t care enough” to buy them one, yet I also feel that “my guy” should have the balls (oops, can I say that in IMHO?) to take a stand against the notion that a girl can be bought for the price of a flower. Plus I like to think he doesn’t spend his money frivolously.
And I hold all RG’s personally responsible for making me feel so conflicted.
So, I’d like to ask you how you handle it.
I’d like the opinions of rose buyers and buyees please.
Probably not. Most of the women I’ve spent time with would see it as a waste of money. Not to say that they don’t like gifts, but the gifts I give them are picked out specifically for them based on their tastes. Finding a book I know someone will like, or making her a CD of music I know she will appreciate means more than some restaurant flower. When I do buy flowers, it’s in plant form. For some reason, just about all the women I’ve dated like to garden, so I like to give them something they can raise and have for awhile. As far as making you feel as if I care enough, paying sincere attention to you suits the bill better than a flower will.
Since we obviously have already been through a lot of this very good date, and yet are not so thoroughly accustomed to each other’s company that it is simply another pleasant night together, the rose guy is out of luck. I already gave this lady a flower, of my own choosing, back when I first arrived on the date. If she doesn’t have it with her, I must assume she left it at home out of a desire to keep it there. So, I shall assume that another flower at this time would be a meaningless gesture. I hate those.
The flower I gave her will probably not last past tonight, though, so I will try next time to get her a more lasting memento. Perhaps some specific physical element of this night’s experience, which can remind her of the pleasure we have had. A rock from the fish tank in the lobby, or a piece of the plastic fern we both though was real. Something like that.
No, I never buy the rose, not because I don’t care about my girlfriend, but because I’m PO’d that the guy has me trapped and is trying to pressure me into buying it so I won’t look like a “bad” boyfriend. I hate being manipulated. And it seems more romantic to me to buy flowers completely unprovoked, to show that I was thinking of her, than to buy themout of convenience or fear.
