I think we’re talking about different types of girls here. I don’t really date “chicks”. First GF grew up in my home town, parents qualified for welfare but didn’t take (country self reliance thing) and she payed for her own cell phone, car, clothes, dresses, everything from high school on by cleaning homes. Put herself through an education, got a PhD with no help whatsoever. Last GF was adopted after child services took her and her brother from her mom because she was a heroin addict raising them till the age of 8 in a prostitute house. Went on to graduate UPenn medical grad program. This one grew up in my home town as well from a family where money was tight, her dad died as she entered college making things worse, so she put herself through school and grad school working as a nurse, then nurse anesthesist without assistance.
The point is, they’re not airheads that only use laptops for ipod charging and the value of a mobile laptop for doing casework and grad school projects isn’t lost on her.
Funny story about the first GF, her and I were snowmobiling one time when she was 16 and a friend and I were hitting this 30+ ft jump, but it was night and we didn’t realize how far we were launching, so I kept downplaying it and estimating it at 15-20 ft. So finally she wants to hit the jump and I’m like, "okay, keep your feet locked in the stirrups, it’s going to land with or without you, don’t hit it above 40 mph (we were doing like 60) and don’t deathgrip the throttle in the air. Had she listened to any one of those thing she’d probably have been fine. Anyway, she doesn’t , so she hits it about 60, feet come loose, she deathgrips the handlebars / throttle, and totally eats it. Snowmobile lands fine, but she gets ejected. She broke her wrist in 3 places and came up laughing. We get her back to the house and she decides to take ibuprofin and wait for the morning to drag everyone to the emergency room because it’s late. She was attractive too, just different mindset back home.
Dude, I’ve known this girl and her family since I was like 8, and will know her long after we do or don’t break up. She’s not into me for the money and she doesn’t expect much. Anyhow, it’s not an “investment” and I’m not looking for a “reward”.
Yeah it’s possible this woman is special, but the deck is pretty much stacked against you. You know better than anyone here, and I wish you luck with the gifting, but this sounds like a risky way to approach a relationship IMO even if you have known her for a long time.
Maybe my personal experience is not representative, but every time I have been very generous with a woman or consistently nice to her, I get kicked to the curb. It’s almost like they’re not wired to appreciate that or something. I have seen this happen to many other men as well. So my personal rule is, treat the woman with respect, but don’t treat her too well in terms of gifts, attention, etc. unless she has clearly earned it (which might be the case here, only Black Swan knows that).
I dated a childhood friend for a couple of years. She was hot, smart and I thought she was cool. I gave her a terrible present for Xmas in 2008 (had my mind on other things) and we broke up days after. Haven’t spoken to her since and I used to see her several times a year, sometimes once a month. The fact that you were friends before means next to nothing at that point.
Also, found out she slept with some douche “friend” from college, who’d been circling like a vulture for a couple months, on NYE 2008. Sometimes better not to know. Don’t think I could ever hide my palpable dislike for her if/when I see her again. The lesson? No lesson, just a story. Happy thoughts.
Haha I love the investor mindset everyone has when it comes to gifts. By the sounds of BlackSwan’s girlfriend, a laptop is an appropriate gift. Sounds like she would appreciate it and that the gift would mean something to her. I say go for it and give her the MacBook.
How frequently do you see her? They key is to be friends, but then have a period apart of maybe a year or more. Then when you get back together, you have all the familiarity, but not too much, and a chance at a first impression, etc.
For me, I get lucky and date a lot of girls from back home. My brothers were bigtime highschool and later college football players, so everyone in our small town still knows who they are. Apparently while I was busy geeking it out and being unsocial in high school, I had a small cult following of crushes I didn’t know about. So now adays when I go home, I keep getting stopped by girls in bars that say they had a crush on me in HS. People hate unfinished business I guess.
Look BlackSwan, each and every relationship is different. What these others have got to say about your relationship and how appropriate it is or isn’t to give a Macbook Air really doesn’t make any difference. It’s what you think is appropriate that matters.
While I’m different from ChickenTikka in that I do believe in getting a decent gift – especially one that they can talk about with their friends – I do believe it’s a disaster to overspend on a girl. They’ll either take you for granted, not appreciate it as much as they should, or continue to expect that you’ll do the same going forward. Plus, if you don’t have the money (i.e. you’ve fallen on tough times, need to save up for grad school, or whatever your personal reasons are), you shouldn’t put yourself in a tough spot. The girl will respect you for what you do rather than how much money you dole out…at least that’s the kind of girl that we all go for.
But since you ask, I generally spend about $150-250 on Christmas gifts for girls that I’ve been dating for a year or two and where I think things are really promising. If you care about social validation (which probably should matter since girls ALWAYS compare notes), get her something she can show off to her friends. Some of the “talked about” gifts I’ve given, which I felt totally comfortalbe with but didn’t feel like I was burning a hole in my pocket, included:
iPod
Digital camera
Ski jacket
Tiffany necklace / bracelets
…things like that. It’s the tought that counts and the reason I like Tiffany is because there’s just something that makes a girl melt when she sees the blue box. For example, with one of my recent girlfriends, I presented her with a blue box during Christmas Eve dinner. She knew we weren’t getting engaged (too soon), but nonetheless she flipped out at the sight of the blue box, ran to the bathroom to fix up her hair and re-do her makeup, and came back looking hot as all hell and asked our server to take a few photos of us with her memorializing the gift. This was before she opened up the box to see what was even inside!!
These things happen. If you want to get somtehing that will be special without going overboard, check out Tiffany. They have a specific section for $250 and below and no girl will complain about a Tiffany gift, however big or small.
my 2 cents: I also made the mistake of splashing out ridiculous amounts of money on gifts for my wife when we were dating ( we didn’t have a mortgage, kids, I was making good money compared to her, etc). I did the same kinda thing and bought her these extravagant gifts that she didn’t need (designer sunglasses, Channel box set, etc) for every occasion. The problem down the road is that it does end up making you look cheap when you suddenly only spend $150 (or less) on her Christmas present. I find that it really draws attention to the fact that you’ve cut down on spending on her. Having said all this, in this case you’re saying that she really needs this computer and it sounds like it would make her really happy. So I’d be inclined to just do it this time. My only advise is to maybe tell her when you give her the gift that this isn’t the type of gift she can expect in future. Just be honest about it, the last thing you want is for her to expect a new car next time.
