My Reaction To Surprises.

[anne.bc]

You say surprise, I think "I get startled".

If it's a nice surprise like a gift, that's fine. But I just don't like getting startled every day. lol

 

[Jacki Cucinotta]

For me, it all depends on the context in which the surprise happens. If the surprise is anything that happens in everyday life (i.e., a change in scheduling), I can usually deal with it and try to find a solution of how to work around it. If it's something related to something unexpected like a gift or something that involves taking me somewhere I haven't been before without my knowledge, I usually become elated and happy. The only time I really get upset is if something is sprung on me at the very last minute - I often need time to comprehend what is going on and to find a solution around something. That becomes really hard when I already have a full schedule booked or something of that nature.

 

[Grumpy Cat]

I hate surprises. I can't cover up my facial expressions for nothing. If I don't like the surprise, you're gonna know it. Even if it's something I like, if it's not Christmas or my birthday, I always want to know what the occasion is. Then I immediately start thinking if I should get them something too (I guess that stems from being Miss Etiquette.)

 

[nosouvenirs]

Ummm, maybe it's a language barrier King_Oni, I am sorry if my threads illicit anger in you, I forget that I am sometimes being read by people in other countries so I will try to word my posts a bit better for international readers!

What I meant was how do you react when somebody surprises you with something? Like you surprised your girlfriend when you bought her that game on Steam.
And when I said; "Do you look for cameras if you get something discounted or even free", it's about expecting that someone is just doing something nice to get something from you, like I will give you this free gift if you spend over fifty bucks in my store <--- that is just one example ; ]

I don't know where you are from but the cameras comment makes no sense to me the way you meant it (I'm a native English speaker). Of course maybe this is just the Aspie showing. I don't know.

If friends and family surprise me with anything (which is rare), I take it as the gift-without-strings that I presume it is. I would try to do something for them in return, but out of the kindness of my heart, not because they expect it. As for stuff like going out for coffees, the truth is that I want to reciprocate people paying for me more than I actually can, because my money situation is awful and I usually can't afford to pay for everyone for coffee (even just my mom and me).

If a significant bought me something, I would assume it was them trying to be romantic/nice, but I would be wary simply because I do not want anyone who's with me to feel like they have to give me things for me to love them. Also, since I never like to assume reciprocation is expected, it would become uncomfortable for me because I wouldn't know, then, if they expect me to give them a random gift at some point because they did it for me. But relationships are really difficult for me, so it doesn't surprise me in the least that in a relationship I would have trouble with this too.

On Saturday at the coin store, one of the guys working there let me have a BU centennial 1 cent free of charge... which was really nice of him, and he did NOT have to do that. (They could easily sell those for a few bucks each or more.) But I didn't assume it was because of my patronage; I honestly thought he just did it to be nice. I did end up buying $15 of world coins, but one thing didn't relate to the other, imo, since they knew I was buying but not how much. They didn't exactly seem like pretense-filled people, either; they were pretty frank about most stuff in the about-two hours I spent there picking through the world coin bin. AND they tossed me a silver piece to add to my world coins (at 3/$1) because it was bent, which they also didn't have to do. It was horrifyingly dirty as well, but I wiped it with a few pieces of wet tissue not long ago and now it kinda looks okay. Like something I might consider keeping instead of just trying to auction on eBay for somebody to melt.

So I guess my conclusion is... usually I assume people do this because they want to be nice. But if they start buying things for me all the time, or buy a lot of pricey stuff, I get nervous because I don't want to HAVE to reciprocate (and also don't have the means). If I am going to be forced into reciprocating gifts, I'd rather just not get them.