When to give your gal a "just because" gift

A ripple in time
Every gal loves getting a "just because" gift that's unrelated to any holiday...a surprise out of nowhere that brightens her whole week. But there's a right time and a wrong time for this type of gift, and you need to know the difference. Time it right, and it'll make a splash. Mistime it though, and that gift of yours will barely make a ripple.

Happy times
A great time to give your gal a "just because" gift is when she's already really happy. Maybe she's just accomplished some goal of hers, or she's gotten some good news recently, or she's just having a great week.

When you time it this way, your gift will piggyback on her current bliss and elevate it to an even higher degree...making for maximum emotional impact.

Regular times
Give her gifts during normal weeks as well...when she's not overjoyed, but not sad either. A week like this could be one where she's doing a lot of work, pressed for time, or just going about a regular mundane routine. A little gift like this could be just the thing to turn her mediocre week into a good one.

Sad times
A sad week may be one where someone close has passed away, a family member is having a tough time, or a coworker is causing trouble. Now, you may think that if a gift can lift your gal's spirits when she's happy, that you should also give her a gift when she's feeling sad. That's a bad idea though.

You see, a gift can brighten her week, but only a little. If she's feeling sad, then a gift might make her feel slightly better, but she almost certainly won't turn into into all smiles and giggles. The best thing you can do instead is to hold her, give her some time, and reassure her that you're standing by her.

Gifts are only for adding a small touch of happiness to a gal's feelings...not for turning them around from gloom to sunshine.

Not for apologies
Some guys have gotten it in their heads that when they apologize, it'll go more smoothly with a gift. (Are they trying to buy their gals off?) If you're apologizing for something, just do it with words like you're supposed to. Don't give her a gift. Talk to her in a meaningful way and put the matter to rest so you two can move on...and that's all you've got to do.

Now, you may be thinking that following up that apology with a gift would make for a good peace offering, or a token of love to get your relationship back on track in a hurry. That seems reasonable on its face, but think of the long-term effect.

When she looks at that gift of yours several years from now, what will she think? "Oh yeah, those are the earrings he gave me after apologizing for gambling away the kids' tuition money. What a lucky gal I am." Heed these words...if you give her gifts during bad times, she'll always associate those gifts with her memories of those bad times.

Making up
Now if you're apologizing for something major, or if she's apologizing to you for something that she's done, you may need a little jump start to help accelerate the "getting past it" phase. Still, you must not give her a gift.

Instead, take her out for dinner somewhere that you've been to a few times before, or if you commonly go on long walks together, then go do that. If you want to just have a nice lunch at home, that works too. Do anything that (A) will let you spend some time together, and (B) is something that you already do regularly.

In other words, do something that's already a part of your routine together. Doing something special with her would just create a new memory for her to associate with that rough patch between you...which is exactly what you don't want to do.

For example, if you have a cafe you normally go to, and that you plan to keep visiting in the future, that's perfect. Take her there. Your "make up" meal may not be the happiest, as you two could still be getting past whatever happened, but that's unavoidable regardless of where you go.

The reason for choosing this place is because, in her mind, you want this meal to blend in among all the other meals you two have had here before, as well as all the meals you'l have here going forward. With time, her memory of this particular meal will fade away, and hopefully allow any lingering bad feelings over the rough stuff to die off with it.

Now, if you instead take her to a new restaurant for an expensive meal, then every time she drives past that place in the future, it will remind her of that thing that happened between you two. Instead of drowning that bad memory, it'll just breathe life into it over and over again. I'm telling you, this is a bad way to go.

It's normal to make mistakes and to have an occasional argument, so resolving these issues should also be a normal part of your life. Acting otherwise can work to feed those poor memories that you'd rather erase.

Flower power
There is a single exception to everything stated above. This one exception to every rule here is so important that it should be welded to the front of your brain. Remember it and follow it, because it's a rule of gift-giving that our army of gals keeps coming back to time and again.

"Flowers have power, and can be given for any reason...or no reason at all."

Yep, even if she's feeling blue, you've got a green light to hand her a bouquet. If you want to give her flowers for an apology or some problem, that's okay too. However, don't give her the flowers first.

You still need to make amends with your gal by talking things out and spending some time together, but at some point afterward (and defintely not on the same day)...bring home flowers. As our gals put it...

"First speak the words. Then follow with the flowers."

You'll have to judge whether the situation merits a single little flower you stole from your neighbor's yard or a whole bouquet. You'll also have to make the call on whether you should give it to her the day following your talk, or if maybe you should wait a few days and make it more of a "follow-up" to assure her that things will be alright. Every situation is different, so do the best you can with this. Don't worry though, because it's nearly impossible to go wrong with flowers.

LAST THOUGHT
Part of taking care of your gal is timing those "just because" gifts correctly. Do this right, and she'll be all the happier for it.