'AITA because I didn’t have a reaction to my birthday gift?' UPDATED 2X
"AITA because I didn’t have a reaction to my birthday gift?"
My (24f) fiancé (28m) decided that for my birthday, he would get a hotel room for me. We’re not having physically intimacy, but just sitting and relax. I personally wouldn’t have gotten it on my own for that reason, but I’m not going to stop him from doing what he wants to do for me. It took over an hour of driving through a mild snow storm to get here and I honestly just wanted to decompress.
So we get to the room, and it’s decorated. And as I’m turning around to thank him for putting the effort in, he’s recording me. I’m EXTREMELY self conscious about my appearance. I had no make up on, no cute clothes, and I’m exhausted from driving. I’m literally not in the mood to be recorded. So instead of telling him thank you like I was going to, I asked why are you recording me.
That ruined everything for him and now he has an attitude because I didn’t react how he wanted me to. I feel like he doesn’t understand it from my perspective. I’m in my most vulnerable state only to have a camera shoved in my face. Now I feel bad because I made him upset. AITA for not having the reaction he wanted?
Not long after posting, OP shared two updates.
UPDATE: When I originally typed this out, I had to step away to the bathroom to type it out. I added in the comments thing’s that I missed during that initial post, so I’m putting the most important answers here in the quotation.
Those comments explain why I don’t like pictures.
“He said that he wanted to record my reaction for our memories since he’s never done this before and I’ve never had this done to me."
"Now I think the idea is cute in theory, but I really don’t like taking pictures of myself. He knows how I feel about cameras and pictures because I literally have to prepare before hand every time I have the slightest clue that I’ll be on camera or that other people will see me. I’ve been like this my entire life.”
“I have to add that we don’t have many pictures together. I really do not like taking pictures. I’ve had too many bad ones from high school and bullying that happened because of said pictures that I’m completely turned off from them.”
I simply do not like pictures and videos that I’m not allowed to prepared for. Especially after driving in the snow storm for an hour. There’s no other deep rooted issues to blame and I don’t hate myself nor how I look. I would’ve been fine taking pictures after I got the chance to decompress, put all my bags down and get out of my snow gear.
UPDATE 2: We talked about it. I apologized for my initial reaction and reminded him on why I reacted that way. He told me that he wanted to make memories and that what I looked like didn’t matter. I’m still working on being comfortable being on camera, but everything is better and no one is upset anymore.
Here's what people had to say to OP:
Preciouspressure wrote:
NAH. Seems like it was a miscommunication on both ends. He gave you what he thought would be a great gift idea (which makes me wonder if you two ever had a discussion on gift ideas for your bday?) But you being tired and not wanting to be recorded is 1000% understandable.
Just sounds like he is sensitive and got his feelings hurt too easily over it. Maybe just sit down with him and have a genuine conversation about how you feel / why you didn’t want to be recorded.
MoleDunker343 wrote:
No one’s TA. He was recording you to create memories, he was excited to see your reaction at the effort he made and the excitement probably blinded him to the fact that you’re deflated and tired.
Standard miscommunication that can be solved with a simple “Hey, I’m sorry if I came across un-grateful, I was tense from the drive down and I just really wanted to relax, the camera threw me off, I understand you just wanted to capture it as a memory.”
And “No problem. I’m sorry I shoved the phone in your face, I should have been more aware of the fact that you’d be deflated after the drive over and I was just excited to catch your reaction."
Problem solved. Accountability on all sides, you move on. You guys are getting married and you have a lot more harder stuff to deal with than this to come!
EDIT: OP herself verified that the recording was for memories because they don’t have many pictures/videos.
Madam_velvet1313 wrote:
NTA. You're absolutely allowed to have these feelings. I wouldn't say he IS the asshole, however I extremely dislike when someone does something nice than IMMEDIATELY pulls out their phone. It feels so disingenuous and like a need to show ppl "see look what I did."
I also don't believe there is a "right" reaction. You can be ungrateful but in this situation that's not what you were showing you just didn't want to be filmed and that's okay. Definitely NTA.
Tough_Try5065 wrote:
He wasn't recording it "for our memories." he was recording it for his own validation. He wanted you to have a big reaction and he wanted to capture it on video. That's not your responsibility and it's not in the spirit of gift-giving or doing something nice for your partner. NTA.
ServiceFormal8071 wrote:
YOU drove an hour what was he expecting, he’s doing it for himself I hate when people give gifts without thinking about the person who will receive it, it’s like wanted a purse and then gifting that purse for someone on their birthday when it’s not something they would’ve wanted.
Western-Breadfruit71 wrote:
Kind of seems like he gave you a birthday he’d like not thinking about what you’d like. And had you drive. And didn’t get the tik-tok response he had planned to share with the world to get praise for what an awesome boyfriend he is(n’t). And now he’s pouting. Precious. NTA.
I’d just tell him “look, you caught me off guard with the recording thing. I had turned around to thank you then saw you recording and I kind of panicked because I don’t like being recorded especially when I feel like I look like crap.”