Your response: "Well, dear, I don't expect it from you."

orthogonality nailed it.

That would be a satisfying response, but not a polite one, and it would have caused a fight.

Even if we don't come up with the perfect polite answer to this one — and I don't expect we will, as this is etiquette's version of, "Can God make a stone so big he can't lift it?" — this should be a fun thread.

I have many, many stories about this woman if anyone cares to hear them;-)

I think I dated her.

I want to hear the stories!

Aw hell, Orange Swan, she sounds like a piece of work.

I would probably say something to the tune of "your behavior is not my responsibility" but try to make it sound not so snotty. But really, it should be snotty! How rude of that woman!

Read gaspode's answer in your mind using her kiwi accent. Tehe, isn't that cuuute and funny?

"Gifts are never expected, and neither was the Spanish Inquisition."

Why thanks for the invitation, iconomy!

I know I'm being an asshole, but this woman was my college roommate and I suffered much from her.

She was desperately insecure. She used to ask me how her hair looked at least ten times a day. I am not exaggerating. It always looked exactly the same way to me, fine, so I would say, "It looks fine."

She would say in a really whiny, shrill way, "Just fine? Can't you give me more of a compliment than that?"

Repeat ten times daily. Finally after about a week of this I asked her to please stop asking me. She said I couldn't tell her what to say, that I said things that bothered her too, that my behaviour was worse than hers... you get the picture.

She was constantly soliciting my opinion in this way, and whatever I said was never enough. God forbid I should say what I actually thought about anything. If I didn't give her the kind of unqualified, glowing compliments she was looking for, I wasn't a good friend.

One morning she came down to breakfast in a sweater I hadn't seen before. It was pink and purple and had cats on it. I thought it ugly, but of course I didn't say a word about it one way or the other. After five minutes passed, she said, "Didn't you notice I have a new sweater?"

I said, "Yes, I did. It looks warm."

She said, "Yeah, but what do you think of it?"

Here we had another etiquette dilemma. I hate to lie like you can't believe, but I couldn't bring myself to say what I really thought. So I strained a point and said, "It's fine."

So then we had the usual shrill, "Just fine? You don't like it, do you?"

She kept at me for a few minutes, and finally I snapped, "Fine, I'll admit it. I don't like your sweater. Can we just move on?"

That night when we came home from school, she said, "[Name of one of mutual classmate and friend] said it was really rude of you to say you didn't like my sweater."

I then lost my temper.

Ooh, more stories, please! It'll be good therapy, too.

friends? how close?

close? i wouldn't bother with notes! but then i'm a guy! but definitely expect a gift of food! food! the gift of life!

not close? maybe she wasn't sure and wanted to make it so? or maybe she felt you were close enough, and hence, didn't need to bother? or maybe she's just mean and cranky.

food!

she should've thanked you for pointing out her ridiculous sweater.

cats!

indeed.

By comparison, flopsy, one of the times I went to visit her, I took a basket of special fruit spreads, biscuits, a few cheeses, and a bottle of wine as my hostess gift.

All right, another story, coming up.

When I stay with friends I give them something as a gift or treat them to dinner (or cook for them), depending who it is and how comfortable I am staying with them and using their kitchen. I've never written thank you notes, although it's delightfully oldfashioned. I'd love to get one, and maybe even start writing them if I had more time.

More stories!

"Sally" (my roommate) moved from the city where she lived to take a publishing program in Toronto. After graduation she was unable to find a job, so she moved back home. After sporadic employment, she got a job as a proofreader for a company merchandising catalogue.

Well, a few years after Sally took the publishing program a cousin of hers decided that she would like to do so as well. So she moved to Toronto, took the course, and then got a job at Harlequin.

Sally was livid. She felt her cousin had no right to take the same course as her, and she was incensed that her cousin had gotten a better job than her. This was more than a decade ago now, and to this day Sally always refers to this cousin of hers as "that cousin of mine who stole my dream" and I get the occasional email rant about how "this was my chosen path and she had no right anywhere near it".

It's a decade later, people, and she still has no inkling of how immature she's being. Moreover, since when was editing described in such terms as are usually reserved for the priesthood or medicine or something?

I can keep the stories coming as long as anyone wants to read them;-)

I liked that one, and yes, Swan, I would enjoy another. She does sound like a real treat.

More! More!

Holy crap these are great. What a needy piece of work. Wow.

More stories!

Her life-long dream was to work for Harlequin Books? Wow. I mean, I'm sure it's an ok job, but.

But then, she does like cat sweaters...

Why do we enjoy hearing these stories so much? Poor Orange Swan's fingers are going to be numb soon...hee.

I generally answer those kind of unanswerable questions with another question and another and another until the person has to come up with their own conclusion.

"Do you expect a thank you note?

"Do you usually send thank you notes?"

"Only to people who expect them. Do you want one?"

"How do you know who expects them?"
Etc. Etc.

This may help

Anyhoo, if someone asked me, point blank "do you expect a hostess gift", I would say "no", or maybe "no, that's not necessary"

If giving a gift is a condition of being hosted, it's not a gift, it's a fee.

What I'm saying is, it's not your responsibility to make her be polite (by saying that yes, you expect her to participate in common courtsey), it is her responsibility.

Mo' stories please!

More stories!

A week after my mom died, my office sent a gardenia plant with their condolences. My recent ex, with whom I was still sharing an apartment because death of a close family member does not incline one to pack up all of one's shit particularly quickly, saw the plant and said, "Why'd they send you that?"

"Because it's traditional to send flowers in these situations."

He got a totally pissed-off look on his face and spat out, "Oh, was I supposed to give you FLOWERS or something?"

No, asshole-ish behavior is instead the perfect way to express you sympathy for my loss.... sigh.

In any event, "It's traditional" could be one response to the actual question posed.

I fear that somewhere on the internet, my college roomie is telling horror stories about me. (Like the time I drew a moustache on her treasured 8x10 of George Bush.)

Wow. It's threads like this that remind me of how nice it is sometimes to be guy. Because the correct guy answer in every case above (not that they'd occur quite like that in the first place) is "Shut the fuck up."

treasured, jrossi?

girls can totally say "shut the fuck up" too. assertive = sexy

Yeah. Treasured. We weren't all that compatible. (But she really was a nice girl. And I really wasn't.)

Wow, people are fucked up.

Guess it's a good thing that, while we can't choose our relatives, we can definitely choose our friends.

Hells, yeah - keep the stories rolling. I'm feeling the best about myself in the longest time knowing there are horribler people out there than I.

Wine and food for visitations. Prezzies for b'day & xmas. I only buy other prezzies for a 'hope to be' or an actual special gal, but with no predictable timing.

If I was your friend Orange Swan, and I mean absolutely no disrespect or denigration, I would initiate a discussion and get an agreement to mutually not buy shtuff for each other. But that's me. (although I sure would if you got me something before we had 'the talk') So yeah...she's a bit of a rude one.

Personally, and this is just me, I'd fix her with a fake/serious eye and say "Yes. I do expect a gift. And anything less than an X-Box would be insulting.

That pops the ball firmly back in their court without giving them any information on what they should do. And it keeps things light.

If pressed, I'd keep on with the XBox angle for a while, and then finally give them details of something I actually wanted. "The new arcade fire CD" or "a bottle of wine" or something on those lines. After all, she may have been prompting you for information on expected social behaviour. I doubt it, but you never know.

If I've figured the situation right here (She knows she should buy a gift, but she doesn't want to) you'd
(a) get the thing you wanted initially.
(b) never be asked if You expected a gift again.

It's quite a common joke here to say to the people who know you well enough "If you were really my friend, you'd spend $x,xxx on me." That's got nothing to do with anything, but I was reminded of it.

The other tack I'd go for is if she asks you if you expect a gift, get all insular and ask her if it upsets her when you bring her gifts. There's no good answer for her in this situation, and although that first time will be embarrassing, you'll maybe get to the bottom of what she's going on about or she'll not ask you again.

If you insisted on bringing stuff round MY house orange swan, what I did would depend on you. I've one friend who has an arms-race approach to gift giving, and I try to keep things low key so as not to throw her into a paroxysm of consumer excess. Most of the time I just buy stuff for people when I want to give them something. This is completely independent to what I think they think I should get them.

Again, with the sweater. I'd just say I didn't like it.
With the hair ... "Not as good as it looked when you asked me this morning."
or "I'd like to refer you to my previous answer."

She actually sounds a little bit paranoid, so I'd probably mask my usual brusqueness.

Another more general stab.
etiquette isn't about the rules, it's about making the other person feel as comfortable in the situation as possible.

If you suspect she's asking you about expected social behaviour, then tell her what you expect her to do.
If you suspect she's trying to assuage her own guilt about not wanting to get you something, then stop getting her things, and never mention the subject again.
If she asks why you've stopped buying her gifts, then simply say you thought she didn't expect to give or receive a gift when visiting.

The correct response here is the one which makes the other person feel best.

I like the, "Do you usually give hostess presents?" approach. Puts the ball right back in her court. Nice!

The thing was, if she hadn't said that to me and hadn't brought a gift, I might not even have noticed.

So on to the next story.

Through Sally, I met "Gabriel", who was an ex of a friend of Sally's, and Gabriel and I started going out. (Gabriel and Sally's friend broke up several months before I met him and he had then moved to Toronto, so I was hardly poaching.)

Sally was NOT happy about this. She had enjoyed hanging out with Gabriel and I, and said that she'd gone from being "the important one in the middle to the one who was left out", and she demanded we break up.

Gabriel and I stood our ground and continued going out. Sally complained constantly, and was always at me to dump Gabriel. During the three months we were going out, she never accepted the situation.

Gabriel and I saw each other about twice a week, and it usually happened that we'd invite Sally to join us for whatever we were doing one of those times, and then the other time we'd do something by ourselves. But when we invited Sally to join us for the movie or the pub outing or concert or whatever, she'd respond that we were only asking her to go because we felt sorry for her. And if we didn't invite her, she'd say we didn't want her around.

We weren't supposed to show any affection towards each other in front of her. No, we never made out around her - that's rude. It really was just hand holding or Gabriel putting his arm around me, etc., that she objected to. Also she complained a lot about the fact that Gabriel and I would spend time in my room with the door closed "and she couldn't talk to me".

Well, Gabriel and I broke up after three months. I was upset about it for a week, and although Sally did offer significant sympathy and support, she went about smirking with satisfaction and chastised me for acting down because it depressed her.

And next we have the chocolate story.

One year at New Year's I went to visit Sally in the city where she lives. When we sat down to exchange our Christmas presents to each other, she looked at mine in its wrapping and said, "I hope this isn't anything expensive."

I said, "Oh, it really isn't." She'd recently gotten into counted cross stitch, so I had picked up a book on counted cross stitch on sale for $15.

She opened it, and the first thing she said was an accusing, "You said it wasn't expensive!"

I said, "It really wasn't," and opened my gift from her. It was a box with five chocolates in it. I said thank you, ate one, and I swear to God I did not have a thought in my head about the relative cost of the gifts.

She said, "Don't think it was cheap, because it wasn't. It was very expensive."

The next day we were at the mall and I saw the exact same chocolates, priced at $3. To this day, I wonder, "Did she mean to lie to me or did she honestly think $3 was a lot to spend on my gift?"

I told this story to a friend of mine back in Toronto, and she found it quite hilarious. A few years later I visited Sally again, and when I came back, my friend asked me, "Did you get five chocolates again?"

I said, "Oh, no, this year I got NINE chocolates."

more! more!
the book, i would buy!

gabriel!
friend? not what a friend does!
insecure? she should get over it! excusable, perhaps?
happy when you split? i hate people like that!

chocolates!
the first time? didn't want to embarrased, perhaps?
the second time? too many black marks! cut her loose!

she seems to have some issues? but not particularly psychotic in comparison to some!

not particularly psychotic in comparison to some! flopsy - you holding something back...?

Perhaps you'd like tho hear the story of our correspondence....

After graduation, she moved back to her hometown. I stayed here as I had gotten a job.

We corresponded — via snail mail, as it was 11 years ago, just before the dawn of email. Her letters always seemed to arrive mid-week.

I was working fifty or more hours a week and going to university part-time. During the week I didn't get home until somewhere between nine and eleven at night. So, I always waited until the following weekend to answer her letters, as I would then have the time and energy to write a really good reply. Then I would mail it promptly Monday morning.

She asked me if I could answer her letters the day I got them, as she wanted to get the reply sooner. I explained to her about my schedule and
said that no, it just wasn't possible for me to answer right away.

She replied that since she wasn't working or seeing anyone, these letters were all she had to look forward to and if I was a good friend I would answer them right away.

I tried to explain that she was expecting me to give up sleep and/or the only time I had to relax all day, and that I was not doing it, and that it really was her responsibility to make her life more fulfilling.

This cut no ice with her. In letter after letter, she hounded me to write back sooner. She really felt I owed it to her to do this, that I was being selfish to refuse her. She just kept arguing with me in her letters and trying to make me feel guilty. This eventually made me so mad I stopped writing to her altogether for three or four months or so, after which point she at least let the matter drop — but probably more because she had gotten a job rather than because she saw she was being unfair.

But she was still upset that I didn't keep her letters. She kept all of mine, apparently. I said I didn't have the storage space for 26 letters a year and wasn't the type of person to keep a lot of stuff anyway. She was very wounded that I didn't and would nag me to do so, I'd say it was my business what I kept, and why did it matter since she had copies of her letters anyway (she printed them off the computer while mine were handwritten).... The argument went on and on. She could never seem to drop anything, nor see how unreasonable and demanding she was being.

Oh my god, I'm "Sally" and I'm so upset, Orange Swan!

If you annoy me, Sally, I'll tell everyone the Glen story.

Oh, I would be so MORTIFIED if you told I'd NEVER speak to you again.

Refresh my memory?

YOU KNOW WHAT YOU DID, SALLY.

Well OKAY, I know what I did. AND I WOULD DO IT AGAIN!

≡ Click to see image ≡

Jaysus. The etiquette question at the top of the thread really is moot: why bother worrying about this one thing when it's obviously part of a pattern demonstrating deep insecurities or BPD?

My only question is why you continued your friendship with this woman after college at all... and I don't ask that in a snarky, accusatory way, because I engaged in a long friendship with somebody who was possibly even more disturbed, and I have a dreadful familiarity with that whole dynamic. The incidents after incidents, the spells of not talking to her, the (sort of) reunions, the impossible demands, the monologic conversations, and (later on) the constant hits for money, the never ending "illnesses" that probably weren't helped by the amount of codeine she was taking and-- it turned out later-- the cocaine she was shooting. All I can say is that I'm deeply relieved that she's now on another continent. [/ramble]

holding back propoise? no!
some? in meatspace!

Why did I continue my friendship with her? Well, although I have been easing out of this "friendship" for quite awhile now and have long known it wasn't adding anything positive to my life, I found myself pondering that in a whole new way as I related the stories in this thread. (Somehow writing things down gives them a clarity they never have in your head.)

There were some rewards to being friends with Sally. She is intelligent and witty and can be fun sometimes. We used to have pun wars. I remember one incident involving us trying to get her microwave out of the box and how we kept giggling because everything we said to one another sounded dirty. One time we co-wrote a parody of a Harlequin involving wildly successful and beautiful versions of us, some of our ex-boyfriends and a hunky butler named Sebastian. Good times.

Unfortunately, as well as being intelligent and witty Sally was also, as these incidents would indicate, morose, whiny, hypercritical, needy, rude, inconsiderate, selfish, manipulative, jealous, and obnoxious. Ultimately it wasn't worth the aggravation of the bad things to get the good.

I remained friends with her as long as I did for a few reasons, one of which being basic lack of good judgment on my part. Another reason was that Sally would simply not let go. There were a number of times I would get so fed up that I would simply cut her off. She would keep calling and writing, alternately scolding and pleading. Eventually I'd cool off somewhat and she'd get to me with her emotional appeals, and so I'd cave in and write again.

She is better behaved now than she was in college. She is happily married and has had a baby, which has cut waaaaaay back on what she demands from the other people in her life. But the thing is, I believe this to be merely a change of circumstance rather than a fundamental change in her. And I've realized that it's in neither of our best interests to remain in contact when I feel the way I do about her and am merely going through the motions of friendship.