Ask Amy via The Denver Post, November 14, 2016:
A well-known singer announced a tour date for my city. My father generously offered to buy tickets as a birthday gift.
I was delighted, but I also let him know that I needed to find someone to join me. He texted back “I’ll get two tickets and you will find someone to go.” I invited a good friend.
A few weeks later my dad texted me that the tickets had arrived, he asked me to get a check from my friend for the cost of her ticket.
I said there was a huge misunderstanding. I told him I could not ask my friend to pay after inviting her as my guest. I told him to sell the tickets and said I was no longer interested in attending or accepting what I considered to be a non-gift.
He hung up on me and we have not spoken in several months.
My friend and I ended up buying our own tickets and loved every minute of the concert, but I don’t think Dad will ever speak to me again. I am so saddened that my father would sever our over 50-year relationship over this.
In your opinion, is giving one ticket to an event a gift? Was I wrong to not ask my friend for the money, or to send him a check for her ticket?
— Feeling Scalped
Poor scalped, this is just a misunderstanding! There’s no way your idiot friend would listen to you blab on about the situation. Let alone work it out. How embarrassing to have such a terrible abusive narcissist father. Wow, that’s what he calls a gift?!
Your friend never would forgive you for having to pay for a ticket. Especially if you had explained the situation. The only action left to do is to destroy your relationship with your dad. He did that. Not you. As everyone knows, when it’s your kids birthday you are required to buy their friends an equal gift. Had Emily Post enjoyed music, she’d surely written that as a rule of proper etiquette.
It would have been enabling if you had secretly paid for your friend’s ticket. Better to pay for both.
If this is a good friend, you should talk to them. Tell them how they ruined your relationship with your father. It’s kind of the friend’s fault too.
It’s understandable that you wouldn’t want to go alone. Going alone is for losers. You are a winner. Your father must be a loser too if he can’t afford two concert tickets. His own rich daughter can.
Stay incredibly upset by the situation. Forever! Concert tickets and the fallout from trying to give you something is his. You taught him never to try. Now let’s hope heeds that lesson for both of your sakes. Never try, dad!!
Prove your point to your dad. Continue to be hurt. Hold onto this forever. Never speak to him again. Don’t reach out to him. Never forget and hold on to one concert ticket forever. Send him ticket stubs to future concert tickets.
When he dies, buy him two caskets.
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