(Sorry for my English, it’s not my first language)
Me (22f) and boyfriend (24m) have been in relationship for little more than 4 months and his birthday is in the last week of February. I’m so so confused about what should I give him, as I’ve never really gave gifts a lot to people in my life (except my parents and brother) neither i usually accepted gifts from other. I’ve never sent gift overseas but it’s not the problem right now, the problem is— the fear of spending money on something useless that he won’t even find pleasing. Since forever, if i had to gift my close ones, I prioritised giving something meaningful which i make by my own self (like cards, book full of our memories, anything creative and personal to us).
I tried asking my boyfriend few times, what he wants, he just says “I want a *insert my name*”. So by far what i could think of is, a miniature fiddle. Now time for a lil backstory.
My boyfriend is a guitarist and a fiddler. He’s been playing since he was 9. He owns three beautiful guitars (soon to be four), they all have pretty names given by him and he loves them to infinity. He also had two gorgeous fiddles. I didn’t know about the backstory of fiddle but whenever he talked about one of her, he would get super sad, depressed, would grieve. He showed me a lot pics of that fiddle, told me many stories but they all ended with such huge grieve and regret. He opened up lil by lil everyday and i got to know that about two years ago, he was in such bad situation (mentally), he was on his way to his lil fiddle concert but he broke his fiddles in pieces in his car.. I don’t wanna share details, but he only realised what he did when he woke up in hospital. It was the most difficult time of his life.
That fiddle is in repair shop of his friend’s uncle miles away from him, so he can’t even see his fiddle. He is also aware of the fact that it can’t be mended ever but he still have hope.
So that is the reason why i thought of a miniature fiddle to gift him. I’m a student and also have no knowledge of what fiddle is best, so I’m not financially ready or have enough knowledge to gift him a real fiddle like his old one. But when i saw this miniature fiddle, i found one exactly like his broken one which he loves the most in whole world. He has shown his desire to go to the shop to see his fiddle, or ask someone to go look at her, but by far it didn’t work out.. So, i thought, if he has this same looking mini fiddle, he can call her by his old fiddle’s name, and have her on his work desk where he spend hours making music.
But idk, please advise me or suggest me anything else which i can give him.
Tl;dr: My boyfriend’s birthday is in few days and I’m conflicted about what gift should i give him. By far I’ve thought about miniature fiddle, but am i wasting money on something useless??
3 comments
Your gift will either get an A+ or an F- and there’s no in between. If I had to guess, as thoughtful as you have been, I’d lean to the F- because he was very reluctant to speak of it. It’s more likely that he doesn’t want to think about it, than that he does want to be reminded of it.
I would lean towards a more practical choice. A coat, shoes, or something that resonated with where you met or a particularly special date.
I think you’re too early in the relationship to be gifting things of this nature. I would stick with the things you typically do, which are personal and thoughtful, but not associated with a trauma that you don’t know too much about.
Maybe see if you can do a giftcard to a music shop. This miniature fiddle is not necessarily going to be used in the way you wish. It might even upset him, because it’s not his original. There’s too much sentiment to go wrong. With a monetary gift he can see if he adds something to his guitar collection and he can figure out what suits him best.