wine memory

Ran into someone I used to be romantically involved with at the coffee shop the other day. We were seeing each other for about 9 months and then we got bored. He's extremely rich and doesn't really do all that much other than buy nice wines and go to dinner parties. Towards the end of our 'friendship', it was his birthday, and I went out of my way to buy him a really nice bottle of wine - his favorite - in a magnum sized bottle. The bottle was so big and heavy and sucked my money dry but I thought it would be a nice gift for someone who had spent so much money on me in the past months. I went to the wine shop that he frequents and told the people working not to tell him that I of all people had bought the magnum of his favorite wine. That week, he just so happened to begin distancing himself from me as I tried again and again to give him the bottle of wine. Each day that went by, the bottle stared at me in the kitchen and I almost opened it with friends. Two weeks went by and I thought about throwing it on the ground outside his apartment. I always fantasized about the distinct label flowing in the wind to his feet when he opened his door. Finally, after a few more attempts, I went to the bakery he worked at and gave the bottle of wine to his boss. "Tell him happy birthday from me." "OOh no," his boss, an older Latin woman said, "Meetka's pissed. What did that idiot do?" I left a note that said something like "Happy Birthday, glad to call you a friend!" on parchment paper. Some hours later, I got a text from him saying, "Meetka! thank you." I didn't respond and a few hours later he called me asking to hang out and apologized for the distance. He complained that the note I left with the $120 bottle of wine was not warm enough. Things felt normal again.
A few days later, I went to go visit him at the bakery and he asked me to join him to his friend's apartment for a dinner party. The dinner parties he brought me to were always strange. Most of his friends went to Bard and live in Brooklyn now. I really only liked one of his friends, J, who never said anything as annoying as his other friends. J was the reason I could handle the dinner parties. He knew how to laugh. I said I'd love to go to the dinner party and suggested we bring the magnum bottle of wine. He went silent and said "I drank it. With my friends." I was pissed. Not because I missed out on the flavor of the wine but because the gesture said so much of his character. Insecure about putting so much weight on this seemingly petty thing, I asked some older people if it was wrong of me to feel angry that someone drank a bottle of wine without me.

S., owner of a restaurant said, "Why the fuck are you even friends with this guy."
A., Wine director at wine bar said, "Okay my opinion is sort of biased but you don't do that. He has a lot of learning to do."
F., One of his friends said, "God he's such a fucking asshole sometimes lol."

I brought it up to him the park one day. I told him it bothered me. He of course had no idea why I was bothered by his slap to my wrist but I explained myself and that felt good enough. He thought that I meant that any time you give someone a bottle of wine, they can't open it till both the giver and the receiver are able to enjoy it together. That would be ridiculous. I give people bottles of wine monthly and rarely ever expect them to wait for me to open it. But this was different. This was someone who I spent many many evenings with and had a relationship where wine and food played a large role. The bottle of wine was more of a sentiment than it was a gift.

After seeing him at the coffee shop the other day, I realized that I was in fact wrong to care about the bottle of wine at all. I felt embarrassed to have put so much emotional energy into that silly little hiccup. I should've listened to my friends when they told me from the beginning that he probably lacked decent manners being a billionaire and all. (I.e. when I took care of his cat for two weeks pro-bono and the night he got back he asked me to split the bill.) I don't dislike the guy, we're still friends in some ways and I'm usually happy to run into him. He actually made me and my friends Christmas dinner months after this whole wine incident. He still, in some ways, means a lot to me but now I just know not to buy him, or any rich kids, anything nice again.