If You Ask Me

A FRIEND GAVE ME A TICKET, THEN NEARLY ACCUSED ME OF STEALING.

My friend “Callie” invited me to an event she’d won tickets for. She gave me my ticket at the venue, but the event was canceled and would be rescheduled. A week later, she showed up asking to see the ticket. She grabbed it and lectured me, saying I should have given the ticket [back to her] as soon as it had been handed to me and nearly accusing me of stealing. I had assumed we’d go to the rain date together and that a gift, once given, belongs to the recipient. She said the ticket was not “truly” given because the event was canceled. I am willing to apologize if I did anything wrong.

Anonymous / Boston

“A gift is the property of the recipient” is true within reason as an etiquette principle. Sometimes that reasonable boundary is clear-cut, at other times less so. You can sell your own property, but obviously it would be wrong of you to, say, scalp the rain date ticket and leave Callie sitting with a stranger. Why? Because the reasonable assumption is that Callie’s intent was not to give you a fungible token worth $XX, but to share an experience with you.

Apparently this intent changed at some point, but how were you to know that? Callie should have given you the benefit of the doubt. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from a truly astonishing number of years writing this column, it’s that everyone has idiosyncratic, implicit beliefs about what gifts mean and how they should be given. Even within the same family, these implicit beliefs differ. It’s immensely helpful to figure out what yours are, and learn to communicate about them explicitly with others. When the occasional disconnect occurs, friends should be able to assume good intent and work it out.

Instead, Callie made up rules that don’t exist and then accused you of breaking them.

Why didn’t she ask for the ticket back at the venue, once you found out the event was canceled? If the rain date hadn’t been set yet, it would have made sense for her to hang onto both tickets, in case there was a conflict for either of you, but why not ask? If she’d wanted to take someone else, it was on her to communicate that.

So no, you were not in the wrong. What does this incident look like in the context of your entire relationship with Callie? Is she often high-handed and judgmental? Or is this behavior out of character for her? Let’s face it — it’s been a rough winter and a lot of folks aren’t at their best. If this is the case, I hope my analysis can provide some language for you to broach the topic with her.