To be really disappointed with this present

[ToMeetOrNotToMeet]

I might sound like an ungrateful twat...

The gift is from my boyfriend (on/off - "on a break" at the moment, but he wants to get back together... and I wish we could as well... which is why I'm upset about this. We're just not the same.

We're at his mother's to celebrate my and her birthday. She puts on a big show, champagne, cake etc. There are six of us. We do gifts at the end. We're in a rented holiday cottage.
We swapped gifts. All very nice: ornaments, plants, choccies, jewelry, wine...

Then boyfriend pulls out a bag of apples and another bag of tomatoes and a piece of bamboo. He tells us to close our eyes and imagine being somewhere where these things are grown and being in a hotel and looking out of the window and it's raining.

Then there are three wrapped boxes. One for me. One for his mother. One for my daughter (aged 4) or his brother (aged 30). He still hasn't clarified. He says it doesn't matter who opens what, but if we get the wrong box, we won't like it.

It's three external hard drives.

We don't know whose is whose. We have no way of checking here.

He collects DVDs and Bluerays. He's obviously put a load of films on these hard drives.

I've told him in the past that I don't care about DVDs (his entire house is full of them - I mean so FULL that I can't visit. Hoarder full.). I have about 30 minutes a night to watch TV and I'm happy with Prime and Netflix).

So now, I've got to go home with a hard drive full of films that might be for his mother. She'll go home with one that could be meant for me or my kid.

I know he's probably spent time doing it (a lot of time) but I've already told him many many times that I have enough with what I have. I'm just not interested in all these fucking films.

And what the fuck are the fruit and vegetables all about?

Everything always has to be weird and cryptic and about him. If he'd asked me I'd have liked an Etsy voucher or a sodding candle.

Now he's really upset that nobody cares about his hard drives. But he hasn't even said what's on any of them.

It's mad. He's not talking to me for being so ungrateful and I just feel upset that he's given me something so weird.

AIBU?

I think that things might have run their course with him, OP.

See this as an opportunity to move on and find someone who makes you happy.

Seriously, he is only ever going to stress you out.

Good luck!

He's an emotionally manipulative fruitcake OP. He's sensing you're one foot out and he's doing a last grab to get you to stay. Get rid.

@crazyjinglist

He really sounds ludicrously self-obsessed and navel-gazy OP. I have no idea how you put up with this nonsense!

Yes, it appears that he regards other people as vague human shapes that occasionally pass across between him and his navel. He also appears to lack a theory of mind. I couldn’t deal with that for a day, far less years — it’s bad enough trying to explain to my autistic father that while he may know that everything’s fine, where they are and their estimated return time if he unexpectedly goes out for a bike ride with my young son and leaves his phone at home, crucially, I don’t when I show up to collect him to an empty house!

Sorry OP, it's not right for you. You'll never figure him out , he's self absorbed and isn't going to function as a bf at all. Can you extricate yourself now. You're not his therapist.

He isn’t behaving in a way that makes sense to you. And honestly he’s not going to be a positive influence on your DD long term x

Can I express an unpopular opinion please
Sometimes we are drawn to unusual eccentric people,
And we like them for their eccentricity and because they are different to
An average person
And then we expect them to change for us whether it’s for the “right” presents or for the “right” words. We are trying to break them so that they fit in the mould and become like the rest of us
We should really accept each other the way we are
Or walk away

Nobody's suggesting the OP should try and change this man. We're mostly suggesting she should walk away.

@SimonedeBeauvoirscat

The problem with romantic movies is that men are aware of them too. This is some Love Actually emotionally manipulative shit. You’re going to have to rip the plaster off I’m afraid. He clearly can’t take a hint.

They're mostly written by men, too. Which is why the man who won't take no for an answer and stalks the woman (Love Actually, Pretty Woman et al), is violent and historically sexually abusive (see Raiders of the Lost Ark), an addict or alcoholic or generally shit father, murders people with just a pithy pun or is in any other way absolutely unsuitable for the woman always gets her to give up her resistance following a public onslaught of his feelings mattering more than hers.

OP you've had a rubbish birthday, concentrate are you and your daughter. You can do better.

Sounds like you would be better as friends than partners

@crazyjinglist

Nobody's suggesting the OP should try and change this man. We're mostly suggesting she should walk away.

I’m speaking hypothetically Expecting that a person changes and becomes a “practical” person is not reasonable, if he was always different and unusual with his choices

@ToMeetOrNotToMeet

I'm home now. DD and I have had chips and are snuggling in bed now. On the way home (I took him back to his place), he gave me a big long speech (loooong) about how he's frozen in the past, how he has nothing in his life, his need to see me more, what his doctors have told him. It went on and on. He was really thinking about it. He said he couldn't cope with being rejected. I told him I hated the present and that I thought it was all about him. He seemed surprised that I wouldn't like it. It has hundreds of films on it. He then said he had to go up to his flat as he had something for DD. He came back with two gifts wrapped up. Hers was a nice book about wildlife. Mine was a piece of card that said, "I love you though" on it. He'd obviously just done it quickly. Anyway, we're home now. His doctors have written him off sick for another few months. I just want a quiet Christmas with no surprise panda food. I still don't know what that was about. He says it was just stuff he had in his bag. Who carries bamboo around with them though? Anyway, I'm very upset about it all. I don't know what I was hoping for.

If he can't cope with being rejected, maybe he should work on being less rejectable. He's self-centred, truly. And he is not your responsibility. Reject, reject, reject this tight-fisted arsehole.

Never, ever, restart this relationship. And for the sake of your own sanity, just have nothing to do with him from now on. He's not your boyfriend, he's not even a friend. He's living in his own little self-obsessed world where you have, at best, a walk-on non-speaking part, an accessory to him not an actual person. He's a wanker. Let him be a wanker far far from you.

I don't think he's 'the one'

@beenthereboughtthetshirt

I don't think he's 'the one'

So, you were upset and he gave a bit long speech that was all about him.

He’s been signed off sick with depression for “months” by his doctor?

OP, enquiring minds need to know... did you decode your hard drive mystery?