Non-Mental-Health-Related Advice?

[Kaylis-Americanis]

So...my boyfriend's birthday is coming up...(as is our 6 month anniversary on the 19th! oops, almost forgot about that for awhile, lol!) and he is also coming to the US in October for quite awhile to study at college.

I have this little blank book with 16 pages that is meant for making a little kid storybook or something, and have had it for quite a few years, lacking ideas to make it into something.

I also have a ton of poems written about/inspired by one or more of the following: Love/My b.f./life-lessons/us in particular.

I had the hilariously dumb/awesome idea to pick some of my poems and put them in the little book and illustrate it, to give to him as a gift.

Problems:
-Seems kind of creepy, like I am some kind of stalker or obsessed or something
-I'm not sure if he would truly appreciate how not-creepy it is, but quite the opposite.
-if I put all the work in, I would probably want to keep it for myself!


Any advice, anyone?

[Noctivagus]

When my wife and I were boyfriend and girlfriend... she prepared a table in her flat for us to study together. The thing that made the most impact was a simple jam jar which she filled full of pencils for me and drew a little label with my name on it with illustrations. I kept that jam jar for years until it decided to disintricate!

Simple and beautiful.

If my girlfriend back then gave me something like that... I'd think that what you suggest would be a truly beautiful gift, nothing creepy or stalker-like about it... totally sweet

[Kaylis-Americanis]

If my girlfriend back then gave me something like that...

Thank you for changing your reply a bit... it would have been kind of creepy to someone who didn't know better

Thanks for the opinion though also... I'm still thinking....

[Noctivagus]

Thank you for changing your reply a bit... it would have been kind of creepy to someone who didn't know better

I read it back to myself and thought... erk, that doesn't read too well

[Kaylis-Americanis]

Thank you for changing your reply a bit... it would have been kind of creepy to someone who didn't know better

I read it back to myself and thought... erk, that doesn't read too well

[Noctivagus]

[adhocisadirtyword]

I don't see it as creepy at all. Of course, I'm often making little things to show the people in my life that appreciate them.

A few months after I met my now husband (we grew close very quickly --not sure how close your relationship is), I made a little book out of 2 pages of 81/2 x 11 paper. I drew stick figures on there and other cartoonish drawings of the different things I loved about him.

One of them we still reference -- the Burly James Action Figure (which is all the more amusing since he is about 100 lbs soaking wet).

He totally loved it and cherished it. He still has it.

For Christmas this last year, I made him a scrapbook of our love "story" up to know. It was in story form starting with "Once upon a time... there was a girl... and a boy..."

[Kaylis-Americanis]

adhoc, that is so cute

I also am one of those people that like to make personalized things to give to people.


EDIT: Obviously.

[Noctivagus]

...not sure how long you've been together...

They've been together almost 6 months - see first post

I couldn't face asking Irene out when we first started being friends. So I wrote her a riddle. She wrote down several possibilities and on the back page she wrote one she initially wouldn't let me see. Eventually she showed me and it was the right answer. She then said 'No'.

Under 10 months later we got married

[Kaylis-Americanis]

What was the riddle? A longer and more complicated version of the classic grade-school "Do You Like Me? Check yes or no."?

[Noctivagus]

No... it was a proper riddle. Its over 20 years ago now, so I cannot remember what I wrote. Irene threw it away... and has regretted doing so since the day we started going out.

Serves her right for initially saying 'no'.

[Aspen]

So...my boyfriend's birthday is coming up...(as is our 6 month anniversary on the 19th! oops, almost forgot about that for awhile, lol!) and he is also coming to the US in October for quite awhile to study at college.

I have this little blank book with 16 pages that is meant for making a little kid storybook or something, and have had it for quite a few years, lacking ideas to make it into something.

I also have a ton of poems written about/inspired by one or more of the following: Love/My b.f./life-lessons/us in particular.

I had the hilariously dumb/awesome idea to pick some of my poems and put them in the little book and illustrate it, to give to him as a gift.

Problems:
-Seems kind of creepy, like I am some kind of stalker or obsessed or something
-I'm not sure if he would truly appreciate how not-creepy it is, but quite the opposite.
-if I put all the work in, I would probably want to keep it for myself!


Any advice, anyone?

I think that it's a great idea, but it really depends on how close the two of you are, IMO.

My husband made a calligraphy scroll for his ex-girlfriend's birthday. He was very serious about her.

He and I were friends at the time and I thought it was very sweet that he would take so much time and effort to make a gift like that for her.

Unfortunately, she was not as serious about him as he was about her and she broke up with him before her birthday in a really hurtful way, so he never gave her the scroll.

He thought that it would be a good idea to give the scroll to his new girlfriend for her birthday (with her name in it instead of the ex-girlfriend's name, of course).

I thought that was a horrible idea and tried very hard to talk him out of it, but he was determined to give it to her and so he did.

It was a disaster, because it was too soon in their relationship and he came across as someone who was much more interested in her than she was in him, so she told him that she was still seeing other guys and they wound up breaking up with one another.

I think in retrospect that it really worked out well, since their loss was my gain.

[adhocisadirtyword]

Yeah - the closeness factor is key.

When I made the cartoonish style drawing I mentioned, we kind of already knew we were going to be together for a long, long time. We were already planning on one of us moving to the other's location (we were 3,000 miles apart).

For my birthday that year (also before he moved out here), he gave me one of the most amazing gifts ever. He recorded his thoughts like in an audio diary about certain things he wanted to tell me. He even sang a song he was listening to in one of them (with no music... he had headphones in. It was adorable). It was 2 CDs when he was done. I can't put into words how much I cherish those disks. He bared himself completely to me on them.

[Sophist]

I don't think I have any advice, not being especially experienced in this area. Although I am certainly taking notes.

[Kaylis-Americanis]

Hmmmm..... thanks for the advice everyone