I am a college professor. I graduated from Stanford, UC Davis, and went on to receive my Phd from UF at the age of 26. I am married to a wonderful man who received his Phd, and we have no children. I am in a sorority and he is in a fraternity. My life was perfect before the incident below took place.
When I came back to work from the break recently, I had a package waiting for me in the office, from an anonymous sender. Inside it contained gift certificates for (from what I've heard) are very expensive restaurants. Restaurants in San Francisco, such as "Aqua", "Jardiniere", "Benihana's", "Farallon", "Gary Danko", "Masa's" "Fleur De Lys", "Postrio's" I've never even heard of most of these restaurants before, let alone eaten at them, but I have a feeling that someone from my past sent them to me out of guilt, and there is no forwarding address, so I can't send it back.
A part of me wants to keep it, but this person that I am assuming it is, slept with my husband 3 years ago, and then turned around and lied about being pregnant with his child. She told me that she had issues because of being molested as a child, had low self esteem and that she lied about the pregnancy to get me to leave my cheating husband, because she thought I deserved better. I was furious with him and we suffered tons of backlash from their actions, but I didn't leave him. She was a girl that I was trying to mentor, and who was in my class as a communications student. Over a year's worth of time, we developed a cool bond and I don't know why she did what she did, but I forgave my husband and told her to get lost and to seek psychological help. After I found out and told her off, she called non-stop for forgiveness on and off for about a year and a half. She finally stopped for a year or so now, Suddenly I get these expensive restaurant gift certificates (no note, no forwarding address) and I mean for like $200.00-$500.00 a piece. Who else would do this and for what? I told her a while back that the least she could do, was to never contact myself or my husband again, but I guess the guilt wont let her. What would you do? Should I keep letting her send this to me or contact the police? I am a college professor and so is my husband and I don't want any negative attention for neither one of us, because of this incident. I just want to move on with my life and forget that this ever happened.|||Why would you contact the police? It is not illegal to leave a box of gift certificates.
I say keep them and use them. You are reading a lot into this. Maybe they are from her and maybe they aren't. The best closure you could get from this is to take the gifts and use them with your husband and enjoy yourselves and reconnect with him.
If she contacts you again and she mentions that the certificates were from her you can sarcastically thank her for the good meal and the great sex afterwards.|||Yesterday's answers didn't work? Mine is still the same, give that stuff to charity.|||The police will be able to do very little, other than try and use the postage to track where it came from...Which may pinpoint your girl, but if she is sending you gifts and you have no prior police reports against her they cant honestly do anything. It will just look like someone sending you gifts. Now if you reported her for harassment, and THEN she sent those certificates, then I can see where they can intervene and at least slap her with a warning or restraining order...But it looks like you have two options: keep them and call the restaruants to make sure they are legitimate and have some one on one time with your husband on crazy-train's dime, or simply do nothing with them or regift them. Although be careful, crazy-train student may end up paying attention to those spots to see if you show, then that can spell trouble...Best bet, dont make a mountain out of a mole hill unless you know its her. Call the spots, see if the gifts are legit, wait a while and then spend some nice time with your husband on her dime. There is no crime or shame in that, although you may have that woman in the back of your head the whole time...
Its a lose-lose situation unforutnately, mostly for her...You end up with some nice gifts, but a shaky emotional balance over this wackjob...And she is out hundreds if not thousands of dollars in money and has no married man to project her craziness onto...
No one really wins here. =( Go with your gut, 9 times out of 10 that is the most secure way to go about making these types of decisions.|||Why bother calling the police, theres nothing they can do about it! If you don't want to use the coupons, then I suggest giving them anonymously to people who would never be able to go to places like that. You'll have fun making someone elses day! It will be like a way to help turn the bad to good!|||Honestly, I would talk to your husband about it first, and see what he thinks.
I'm not so sure that the police can do anything for you. Other than a hunch, you have nothing to connect her with this. For all you know, it might not even be her, but a mistaken address.
Talk to your husband and see what he thinks you should do. If nothing else, you can always donate them to a charity auction.|||I'm jumping on the charity bandwagon. Give them away. Even if they aren't from her, you said you don't eat at those restaurants anyway. Either way, you aren't going to lose anything.
If you get another package though, before you open it, you really do need to call the police first to report a suspicious package. You got lucky that the only thing in this mystery package was gift certificates.|||dude....free food! if you want to get rid of 'em, use 'em! you dont know if its her or not....give her the benefit of the doubt. its probably someone you know or maybe you won a raffle and didnt know it. and heck, if it is her, what else can you do? she obviously hasnt forgiven herself. nothing you do could change that, IF this is actually her.|||The gift certificates are already paid for why not use them? Or at least go to the restaurants and make sure they honor the gift certificates in the first place...because that would be a pretty crafty way to get payback: Send you to an uber expensive restaurant where you and hubby rack up a huge bill thinking it would be free until oooops they don't take gift certificates.
If you are thinking about donating them to a group I would actually offer to hold an auction online and donate the proceeds to them. That way you are sure they are being used properly. But you should also make sure that they are real in this case too.|||You have no reason to call the police, nothing illegal was done. Unless you want to donate them to the police. If you don't want to donate them to a charity, then throw them away!
I don't understand how such well educated individuals could have such a problem with some gift certificates. Keep them, donate them or destroy them, the choice is yours!|||Doesn't have to be from her at all--could be from someone that finally got a great career in which you were part of and is grateful for your time and help--as they are finally on the road to success. You might have to think good about this. If no name on it, what does it matter?
In my own career, received a few nice gifts, but never like real "meal" tickets --- when I graduated myself, I send a gift and a thank you card to a professor that took the time to see I made it through my toxicology %26amp; pharmacology classes when I had the flu. So, think good, might be from a very grateful student.|||I'm sorry for your pain. You should feel nothing wrong with keeping the gifts[it's the least she can do] but I like the idea of giving them to poor people who would love to go to a nice place to eat for a change. My cousins were exploring the mountains in Alaska once and they found a brown paper bag by a tree filled with at least 5000 dollars in cash They had to decide what to do. Keep it and shut up about it or do the right thing and turn it into the ranger station...they turned it in and if no one claimed it within 30 days it was rightfully theirs to keep. The park rangers could have stolen it too but they didn't. My cousins got the money and put it towards their college education. So keep the gifts and for give or give it to some one else. What goes around comes around.|||I cannot believe in my wildest dreams that a "so called" college professor would come on Yahoo answers with this question. There is something about your story that is not ringing true.
Never heard of a college professor with a PHD telling someone to "get lost" The standard of some of your English is not that of a professor.
If any of this is true you can send the gift certificates back to the restaurants concerned. You could donate them to charity who can auction them off to raise money or tear them up and throw them away. Police would not be interested.|||Contact the police and say what? That you received a gift from someone and you assume it's this woman but you don't actually know? What would they do? What crime was committed? You don't have a restraining order, and it's not clear that leaving an anonymous present would violate it--you'd have to prove it was from her, not just say, who else could it be. For all you know, it was a grateful student.
You may say that you want to move on, but you haven't. Just receiving these gift cards has rattled you and brought this whole episode back up, and you still don't even know if it is related. With all your education and your position as a college professor (why you felt we needed your resume I have no idea), you shold know better than to assume, and you should know to seek therapy when you have a problem you can't get over.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment