The Teddy Bear Incident

No, no, no, this can’t be happening, this canNOT be happening right now! What do I do? Do I smile? Say thank you? Comment on its…cuteness? Oh why, why, why? This is our FOURTH date! It’s too early for this! Doesn’t he understand what this symbolizes, what this MEANS? Oh god oh god oh god now he’s just staring at me, with his goofy smile, waiting for my reaction. C’mon, pretend to be cool with it. Pretend like this doesn’t scare the crap out of you. Pretend like you don’t want to run far, far away and never ever look back. “Wow. How….sweet of you….to….to think of me! On your vacation…in Chicago….with your family! Kthanksseeyoulaterbye!” 

There are three times when it is acceptable for a guy to give a girl a teddy bear. The first is anytime during middle school. The second is on Valentine’s Day. The third is at carnival after he won the bear for completing some masculine task. Did I forget to mention it should be AT a carnival ON Valentine’s Day when you are IN middle school? Any other time is no bueῆo, because getting a girl a teddy bear is practically a proposal. The stuffed animal may seem cute and cuddly, but in actuality it is covered in expectation and filled with suffocating emotion. The teddy bear is silent to the untrained ear, but to girls in the dating world, they scream “COMMITMENT” in a high pitched, piercing, and needy tone. 

Color me surprised when a guy I had met on a blind date, and had been casually seeing for a few weeks, came back from a family trip with a gift for me. Not just any gift, a teddy bear. I hadn’t even kissed the guy yet. Heck, I hadn’t even hugged the guy yet! In the instant when I saw the bear I felt as though the wind had been knocked out of me and that the walls were closing in. But the worst part of the whole situation isn’t even the bear itself, but the guy’s expression after he gives you the bear. He just stands there. Staring at you. Smiling with his hands in his pockets, so proud of himself for getting you the perfect gift, and expecting your undying gratitude in return. Unfortunately for him (and in my situation, we refer to this particular ‘Him’ as He Who Must Not Be Named), not only is the teddy bear an inappropriate gift, but at this stage in the relationship that I am NOT in with He Who Must Not Be Named because let me reiterate, we’ve been out FOUR times, ANY gift is inappropriate. What makes it all worse, as if that is possible, is that He Who Must Not Be Named brought the thing back from a vacation that he went on with his family, which means his mom and his sister helped him pick it out for me. Not okay considering I had yet to meet them; not okay even if I had met them!

Guys think a teddy bear is a personal gift, well my friends, it is not! A teddy bear is so commercialized, and so devoid of meaning, that it is the exact opposite of a personal gift. What does the bear say, really? That a guy doesn’t know enough about you to get you something you really like? That he’s too cheap to buy you something you could actually use? Why does he feel the need to buy you something in the first place? When a gift is given without an occasion, something is wrong. Sorry to all those who claim to like “spontaneity” and little presents that are “just because.” Such things do not exist. Either he’s apologizing for something, he’s buttering you up for something, or he’s trying to get in your pants. There are no other explanations, and there is no such thing as a no-strings attached gift.

After I received my teddy bear (which came with a box of chocolates, incidentally, but that in no way redeems the bear as a gift), my whole outlook on He Who Must Not Be Named and our situation changed completely. All of the sudden I felt as though I was obligated to keep seeing him, but clearly his feelings for me were much stronger than mine were for him. All of a sudden I went from seeing him as cute and attentive to clingy and needy. With one gift he managed to turn our casual summer fling into a full-on committed relationship, something I was certainly not looking for, and something that was never discussed between us. I physically cringed every time I told one of my friends what he had gotten me, and everyone’s reaction was the same: “He didn’t!” Oh yes, he did. 

Ladies and gentlemen, there is a moral to this story. Teddy bears are meant for hospital gift shops and children’s toy boxes; teddy bears have no place in relationships. If a guy wants to show a girl how he feels about her, he should tell her. You know, by using words and stringing them together into (hopefully) coherent sentences. Words don’t leave you guessing or feeling suffocated the way an inanimate object does, and words offer a girl the chance to communicate back. Don’t make a girl stash the gift you gave her the second she gets in her house because she’s afraid her mom or worse, her dad might see it and start asking loaded questions. Don’t make a girl text her best friend asking for advice on how to end it with you. But most of all, don’t make a girl feel trapped. Guys, before you punch in your pin number and press ‘no cash back,’ think about the girl you are seeing. Has she ever brought a stuffed animal out with her on one of your dates? Has she ever brought children’s playthings up in conversation? Does she have any hobbies that involve plush toys? If not, then put the debit card back in your wallet, put the teddy bear back on the store shelf, and go pick up your girl. Open the car door for her, pull out her chair, and offer her your coat when it gets cold outside. Those are the things that give girls butterflies, not teddy bears.