Is I Dont Want A Gift Just A Trap?

The Dating Nerd is a shadowy figure whose whereabouts and identifying details remain unknown. What we do know is that he is really, really good at dating. He's been on more dates than you can shake a lengthy bar tab at, and he's here to help the average guy step his dating game up a notch -- or several.

The Question

Hi Dating Nerd,

Me and my girlfriend have been dating for almost a year, and I’m wondering if I should do something fancy for our anniversary. I’m on the fence. She’s a pretty casual girl. We weren’t dating exclusively for the first six months we were together. And when I asked her at one point whether she cares a lot about anniversaries and Valentine’s Day and stuff like that, she said she didn’t care about it that much. On the other hand, my best friend says I’m an idiot and that I should do something to mark the occasion. What do you think?

- Doubtful Dave

The Answer

Hi Dave,

Yes, I think your girlfriend would like you to do nice things for your anniversary. Of course, this is an assumption, not a statement of fact. I can’t look inside your girlfriend’s heart. Maybe she genuinely doesn’t care. Maybe you're the only one who remembers when the anniversary even is. Maybe she’s waiting for a chance to harvest your organs and sell them on the dark web. Maybe this whole question is email spam. I am not paid to be psychic. I am paid to tell you what’s probably going on.

RELATED: Understanding What Women *Really* Mean

And what’s probably going on is that you should take your girlfriend on a nice expensive date for your anniversary, or get her a special present, or do anything other than thinking you’re above such things. Because, based on my experiences, when a woman tells you she “doesn’t care that much about special occasions, it’s sort of a lie.

To be more precise, it’s not a lie, exactly. It’s more of an understatement. In this case, “I don’t really care about it probably means “I don’t need you to spend a million dollars on commissioning a blimp with my face on it to sail through the sky, but you should probably do something. It won’t, like, give her permanent trauma if you don’t make a considerate gesture, but she’d probably prefer one.

But, you might say, if this is really her preference, why wouldn’t she just tell me what she wants? This is a good question, to which I have two answers.

First: In general, women really like displays of commitment. You can come up with all sorts of stories about why this is, depending on what kind of philosophical stance on gender you’re into. Maybe it’s some evolutionary psychology stuff about how women are biologically predisposed to look for strong providers. Or maybe it’s lingering patriarchal gender role programming. Who knows.

For our purposes, though, we don’t really need to care about the origins. We just need to care about the facts on the ground. Think about engagement rings. Do you think engagement rings are important because gemstones are inherently valuable? Do you really think it’s about the potential price appreciation of precious stones? No, of course not. It’s a display of commitment, and it’s meaningful because it’s expensive. You spent a bunch of your hard-earned money on a symbol that says “I’m not about to haul off and make a pass at that girl on the elliptical next to me at the gym tomorrow, because you really matter. That signal is the important part.

And, on a smaller scale, doing something nice for an anniversary is a signal, too. It’s a signal that you’re thinking about her, that you want to surprise her with displays of affection, and, also, that you want to publicly announce that she’s your favorite person. (If you don’t Instagram it, she probably will.)

So, here’s what that means: If she told you exactly what she wanted, it would reduce the quality of the signal. Sure, you’d still be doing something for her, but it would be something she’d instructed you to do. It’s obvious that this would be a less impressive display.

Now, I can see why hearing this might be annoying. Shouldn’t it be enough that you’re just a good boyfriend? Isn’t your devotion obvious because you show up every day, whether or not you participate in all of these masquerades? Yes, in a perfect world. But we don’t live in a perfect world. We live in a dumb world, where we’ve all been programmed by our culture/biology to want somewhat arbitrary things. And, take it from me: Even women who think anniversary displays are a little dumb probably still want you to do the dumb thing. If not for them, then just for the fact that they’ll be able to tell their mom and their friends that you came through. It’s a social phenomenon as much as it is a personal phenomenon.

This brings us to the second reason that you should assume that your girlfriend cares, even though she told you that it “wasn’t that important. Which is that there’s a lot of cultural pressure on women these days to be “cool girls." Y’know, like, not “clingy," which is to say, not obviously emotionally invested. It’s not fashionable to say that you want old-fashioned commitment, along with the old-fashioned trappings of it.

The millennial dating mode is to say you’re “casually dating and that you “don’t want to put a label on it for roughly a million years, as you have in your relationship. So, your girlfriend might be afraid that if she says she likes the trappings of old-fashioned romance -- like Valentine’s Day, or anniversaries, or public displays of commitment in general, or, oh, say, marriage -- you’ll get scared and run away. Presumably, since you’re asking this question, you wouldn’t be scared of declaring your commitment. But she might not know that, or might not be totally secure about it. Maybe she’s scared away past boyfriends by stating perfectly normal needs. (This happens to an astonishingly high number of millennial woman.)

Now, big caveat here. It is possible, of course, for a woman to actually hate big showy displays of affection. But those are outlier cases. And, if she genuinely was one of these outlier cases, your girlfriend would probably say “I hate big showy displays, rather than saying, “Yeah, it’s not that important with a faraway look in her eyes.

Since you’re clueless about this, I’m going to assume that you’re also unsure about what you should do for your anniversary. And, honestly, you can’t go too wrong with a nice date and some flowers. But whatever you do is much better if it’s personal. If you get her flowers, get her the flowers she really likes, from a competent florist. (Ask a close friend of hers if you don’t know about her taste in flora -- not only will you ace the selection part, but she’ll find out that you asked around about her tastes, which is a win.) Go to a restaurant she’s always wanted to try, followed by a drink at the bar where you had your first date.

You get the idea. You want to show that you’re thinking about her specifically, not just doing a bunch of general stuff some Internet dating columnist told you to do.

Think you could use some dating help, too? Email the Dating Nerd at .

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