Before I went over to her place, the woman I’d recently started dating told me, playfully, to bring flowers, croissants, or chocolates. I happened to have chocolates. My sister, whom I hadn’t seen in a long time, had brought me a nice box from her travels. I figured we could share them. It didn’t occur to me that I should specify the box’s return itinerary.
I’m 46, she’s 39, and so far we’d had the kind of chemistry that made me excited to see her again. When I arrived, I mentioned that the chocolates were a gift from my sister. Then we had a lovely evening. The box only became a subject of discussion when I was getting ready to leave.
I offered to leave her a few. She looked at me and said something like, “Wait, you’re taking the box and leaving me some?” I explained that I wanted to keep the rest because they were from my sister. Her voice went cold. “Just take them, then.”
I tried to explain that I rarely get gifts, which is how I managed to supply the material for her next joke, about nobody buying me presents. I told her I’d happily bring her a box of her own next time. Things seemed to thaw a little, and we kissed goodbye.
I can see how she got there. If I asked someone to bring chocolates and they showed up with a box, I might assume the box was for me, too. A quick “I brought these for us to try” at the door might have saved us the whole conversation. Still, I’ve been in a relationship where small disagreements regularly turned sour, and the joke about the gifts stayed with me. She’d told me before that she could be cold. This was the first time I’d heard what she meant.
Today she brought up the chocolates again as a joke. Maybe she was already laughing it off. I’m still trying to figure out whether I committed a small breach of chocolate etiquette or whether the way she handled it would give someone else pause, too.
