Recently, a friend told my daughter that a beau’s gift to her on her graduation from medical school—a piece of jewelry from a famous jewelry store—was over-gifting. She felt the term was apt. Over-gifting occurs when a person gives a more significant or more expensive gift than is appropriate for the degree of relationship. If this is a gift-exchanging situation, you might give a more expensive or significantly more-attentive gift than the recipient gave you.
And haven’t we all been in the situation at some point in time?
It can lead to embarrassment and an expression of more feelings than might be shared by the other person. Yipes!! What if you just don’t know exactly what’s appropriate for the occasion or when there exists a stronger feeling on one side than on the other? There is no solution to this. We don’t always know what amount of money will be spent on gifts for us and we certainly can’t always know if the other person is as into us as we are to him. All you can hope is to minimize these situations and take them as philosophically as you can.