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The original was posted on /r/AmItheAsshole by /u/Outrageous_Map3002 on 2023-09-07 16:38:14.
My daughter (20F) has always been really athletic, and a few months ago she got into running. She got herself some running shoes and some other basic gear from Decathlon, all pretty cheap as she wanted to test the waters and didn’t know if she’d stick with it on the long-term. But she did end up sticking with it, and since her birthday was coming up I thought I’d get her a pair of higher quality running shoes.
Now, my daughter is generally more masculine than she is feminine. I’m not sure why - as a child she wasn’t particularly tomboyish, but not overly girly either. She loved pretty dresses just as much as she loved soccer practice and never seemed to care whether something was for boys or for girls. At around age 12 though, she started avoiding everything deemed feminine like the plague, and suddenly only wanted boys’ everything: boys’ clothes, boys’ haircuts, boys’ games and toys etc. And neither me nor my husband ever had a problem with it. We’ve always let her express herself however she wanted, though I do admit we didn’t really understand this unexplained aversion to all things feminine and kind of hoped she’d grow out of it over the years.
Back to the shoes, I asked her if she preferred any particular brands and she said something about Asics Gel. I looked them up online and they were quite pricey for my budget, but I did some searching around the outlets in our city and ended up finding a pair in her size. The only catch was that it was from the women’s section, though you really couldn’t tell by just looking at the design (it was plain black & white).
When my daughter saw them on her birthday, she was absolutely thrilled. That is, until her father made a joke that went something like “Hey, you finally own one clothing item from the women’s section now!”. She was visibly upset by that comment and immediately asked me if the shoes really were from the women’s section. And when I confirmed it, her face fell and just like that, all the excitement was gone.
I feel horrible because she did try to act grateful, but you could still tell she was disappointed by the gift. At the same time though, I cannot for the life of me understand why a pair of shoes she was initially all over the moon about immediately became a disappointment after it was revealed they were from the women’s. My husband owns a few pairs of women’s shoes himself because he says the colors are just more cheerful, I honestly can’t see what the big deal is here.
My daughter hasn’t worn her new shoes even once since and I’m starting to wonder if I made an asshole move here. AITA?