Steering Clear of the Non-Gift Gift

by Gwen Cooper — October 18, 2007

I remember once having a boyfriend—more than a decade ago—who would always give me lingerie on any gift-giving occasion. While he and I had one of the better sexual relationships I've had with a man, and while the buying of lingerie by him that I would later wear certainly contributed to that, I always had the feeling that a man buying a woman lingerie is a non-gift gift. After all, it was at least as much a gift for himself as it was for me—arguably even more so.

Adding insult to possible injury in this particular case was that the man in question worked in the wholesale garment and accessories business, which meant that he acquired the lingerie at less than half the retail price. Perhaps the price he paid shouldn't have been a factor in how I received the gift, but somehow having a man gift me with discount lingerie—not just at the holidays or Valentine's Day, but for my birthday—has left me with a bad taste in my mouth when other men have tried to make presents out of bras and panties or bustiers and negligees since then.

The inevitability of being in a long-term relationship is that certain things about the other person grate on you or lose some of their charm over time. When Robert and I first got together, I would go on regular underwear-buying expeditions so that he would never have to see me in the same bra or panties twice. But, six months into the bargain, I'll admit that the frequency of such shopping trips has slowed down ("stopped" might be a more accurate way of putting it), and several old favorites with which Robert is very familiar have worked their way into a regular rotation. In other words, he's seeing some of the same things over and over again.

As a remedy against potential boredom, Robert has offered to take me shopping for some new intimate garments. My birthday is coming up, he points out, and he'd be more than happy to buy me a few new things as a way of...

"No thanks," I always interrupt him when gets this far. "You worry about birthdays, and I'll take care of all the lingerie buying on my own."

Gwen Cooper is the author of Diary of a South Beach Party Girl, recently published by Simon & Schuster. To read all of Gwen Cooper's posts in "The Dating Life," click here.