A guy that I used to date is getting married. I have spoken to him rarely since he moved in with his fiance (about a year now), and he chose not to maintain a friendship with me after he became serious with her (he was dating both of us at the same time). While it was hurtful to hear of his engagement, I know our relationship would not have lasted, but I do wish the best for him – therefore, I sent an engagement/wedding gift. The gift was only a gift card. He and his fiance have a “wealthier” lifestyle, so I tried to determine an amount appropriate.
I sent the gift through a friend in common. A little over a week after he received it, he contacted me and asked for my address to return it – he felt it was too much. I responded, but chose to give an alternative address because I was going out of town. I thought it was safer to go to that address vs. sitting in the post office. Either way, I provided an address for return and did not feel the need to explain further why the address did not match my current city, state.
I went on vacation, and returned to spend a few days at the alternate address I provided before returning home. During that two week time span (vacation), nothing had been returned to me at that address. I was remaining one more week out of town before returning home so I contacted him again, letting him know when I returned home and that address and pointed out he could still return the gift to the first address. He responded, and is sending to my home address.
I’m confused about the situation. I did not expect an immediate turnaround on the gift return, but I thought two weeks was plenty of time considering it only required an envelope and stamp to return. When I contacted him, he had done nothing with the gift although he wanted to return it and had all the information he needed to do so. I don’t understand why the address mattered, or why he hadn’t returned it yet – I suppose it might not be a priority to him, but if I hadn’t given him my home address would he even have sent it back at all? Was I suppose to insist he keep it? How long do you take to return a gift to someone you don’t want? I wasn’t really happy to give him my home address – he did not know it (I moved since our breakup) and did not want to give that information out to him – and since we will not have a friendship in the future, he can’t really care whether he has it or not to get in contact with me.
Did I do the right thing, or should I have let it go with the first address and if he chose not to return it oh well? I don’t know what I was supposed to do – it was such an odd situation, and I don’t really know how I should have handled it.
