accidentally throwing away a present (or kind gesture)

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As I understand empathy-based social norms, if someone makes an effort and/or spends money to give me something, and I manage to lose/break/waste it, I'd best keep my mouth shut and let the giver presume I'm still benefitting from her/his generosity.

My aspie friend, not so much. Is this one of those "honesty is the only policy" things?

It's hard for Marvin to maintain regular food intake, so in December when a friend told me his office was turning off power over the holidays and had a freezer full of hot pockets and high-end ice cream bars for the taking, I thought of Marvin.

Coordinating the transfer meant getting to donor friend's office downtown just before closing on the last day they were open, then toting bags a few busy blocks to Marvin's office. A real pain in the neck on a day when I already had too much going on and wouldn't otherwise have ventured through a shopping zone. But the effort meant weeks of low-effort meals for Marvin, and wasn't like I had money to buy him cases of convenience food.

Marvin works in a company where there's such a bad history of kitchen raiding that there are warning signs about taking only one tea bag per kitchen visit. So I thought about suggesting he disguise his lunch stash, but decided he's a grown-@$$ man with years of experience working in cubical settings. Plus, he's pretty inventive, so I figured he'd tell me what he came up with.

Wrong.

Marvin decided to share, by sending a floor-wide mail inviting coworkers to "treat" themselves. Apparently, this word indicated they were welcome to one, whereas "help" themselves would have meant take what you like.

I wish I'd never heard about Marvin's surprise and dismay that his supply quickly disappeared, and that only one person bothered to thank him. WTF did he expect -- to make friends and influence people? The dude was seriously perplexed. But why tell me? Is that an aspie thing?

He even took a picture of the tea-warning sign, and insisted on showing it to me as he arrived at my bf's when I was about to give the cat a bath. (His timing is a topic all its own.) I was annoyed with myself for being miffed; after all, a present is freely given and the recipient can do as s/he wishes. BF says it's not that simple, that empathy means ideally you give a gift in hopes that it somehow enriches the other person in some way. In this construct, it's inconsiderate and self-centered to diminish the giver's joy in giving by letting them know it didn't work out as they'd hoped.

Your thoughts? At this point, I'm thinking no more presents that aren't items Marvin has explicitly stated he needs. Like cloth handkerchiefs, which he always carries; I dye them bc he prefers colored ones that don't show stains as quickly.

I'll once again repeat the three simple facts of life as pointed out in Guy Finley's book "The Secret of Letting go." and hope this illustrates the point I am making. Mind you these aren't word for word and are paraphrased a little. I've also used these in the past on here (why I say I'm repeating).

1. People can only tolerate your dependence for as long as it pays them to do so.
2. No matter how things look on the surface of human interaction, self-interest governs all.
3. Rarely is a good deed done out of the kindness of one's heart. When you fail to show gratitude for someone else's good deed, watch how quickly their attitude changes.

A lot of people have to learn these facts of life.

So you took upon yourself to get this frozen stuff for your pal, and then he shared it, perhaps more liberally than he intended, with his colleagues? And his sharing has annoyed you?

To be honest, if I were you, I would be annoyed for less time than it took me to read your post, then I'd laugh. I think it's funny, and quite endearing.

I find, the more expectations a person has when gift-giving, the more disappointed they are. You could chalk it up to learning about who Marvin is. I agree with Marcia. It is quite endearing. If there were a movie about Marvin, this would be a really good scene.

I see two separate issues.

1. You gave a gift for HIM and HIS benefit. He chose to share it with others.

2. He was upset that others gladly accepted his generosity but only one bothered to show any gratitude for it.


I remember what it was like to have people like me and want to spend time with me so long as I was sharing what I had or paying for the candy and soda. As soon as they got what they wanted or the money ran out...they abandoned me. Some people don't learn this lesson as young as I did.

I don't think he was trying to bring you down about the gift YOU gave him, but rather he was upset about how others took advantage of his generosity without so much of a "thank you" for his sharing and needed to vent to someone about it.

It sounds to me like he was distressed because he didn't expect what happened with the food--i.e., people taking it when it was offered but without being considerate in whatever way he may have expected them to be. I'm guessing it irritated you to hear about it because you, yourself, could easily have predicted the results of what happened.

In this case, I wouldn't be irritated with him about telling you what happened. I can understand being irritated about hearing that it happened, because you may then feel like you're being handed the unexpected social/emotional weight of trying to somehow help it un-happen or not happen in the future. The best way to move past it, I think, would be to remember that it's not your responsibility to 'fix' what happened; if you have the energy and kindness to do so, and if he's interested, you might try to talk with him about why the result of his invitation upset him and about how he might avoid having it happen again in a similar situation. But you're not obligated! I know that's a rough situation. I've had acquaintances on the spectrum, and even as someone who suspects she's also on the spectrum, it can be draining to try to explain how you understand social 'rules' and systems to others. Sometimes you'll have the energy for it, sometimes you won't.

This.

You're right: my main annoyance was that he repeatedly expected moral support for something he'd blown, and had no clue that maybe I wasn't the ideal person to vent to. As I said, generally my presumption is that a present is freely given and the recipient can do as s/he wishes.

It was the aftermath that p!ssed me off, and his absolute lack of insight into his own behavior while expecting me to commiserate. I wouldn't care if he shared it or dumped it all out the window if he didn't like it or whatever; just don't bother me when his choices don't work out *and* his freezer stash is gone.

Frankly, I've let way too much stuff build up around this guy, unaired, so now relatively minor things like this are feeling out of proportion to the individual incidents. And he's a really good guy, so I can't just write him off and walk away.

It's really hard to have a conversation with him about how he comes across, bc he immediately counters what I say and starts making up statistics. As in, invents alternative scenarios with probabilities of how he behavior that I'm objecting to *might* come across to other people. Even though I'm the only one in his life who's around offering actual feedback.

Thanks for helping me get to the core of this, Zer0netgain!