I have known these two friends for almost 20 years now and ever since they started working they’ve always been giving gifts regardless of whether there is an occasion for it or not. I, on the other hand, am not that into gift-giving (because it’s not my love language and it’s also a financial decision). I usually show my appreciation for our friendship through asking them out and spending time with them or sometimes inviting them over to my place for a meal. I do give gifts but rarely.
They’re also very generous with spending money on others (e.g. treating meals often, buying pricey stuff), which I feel isn’t the wisest thing to do unless you’re financially stable enough? One of them currently lives paycheck to paycheck while the other has little savings. Because I started working later than most of my peers and I feel like I’m falling behind financially, I try to save as much as I can. I don’t really spend much on others unless they’re my family or there’s a special event (e.g. friend’s graduation/birthday).
In recent years, our differences in how we show our care for the friendship has caused us to be somewhat distant. They see me as someone who’s stingy and unappreciative of them. But the thing is, I do appreciate them and am grateful that they’re my friends, but it’s just that how I show it differs from how they would do it.
Should I feel guilty for not matching up to them?
3 comments
Edit: I just reread it and I feel as if you’re friends need to grow up. They may not be bad people but they are very weird for expecting you to give them gifts.
A true friend wouldn’t expect anything from you if they know you are struggling. Some people who have never struggled don’t understand how things are for us who do, and it creates an incompatibility rift. I personally dislike snobby people lol or people who log everything they do as a transaction, title for tat, that can get very annoying and toxic.
Maybe you can talk about it with them if you haven’t, but this feels like a basic compatibility issue.
You raise a lot of points here, but I will address just one. Gifts. For me, it often feels forced to have to come up with gift ideas at specific times: birthday, Christmas, and so on. I usually give gifts when I run across something that I think someone would like, whenever that is.
My point is intended to validate your gift philosophy. People can feel many different ways about gifts.