I am a minor living with my parents and we have a close family friend who we will call Jim, he is around 47, similar in age to my parents and originally my Mother's friend. We (Jim and I) are fairly close and go out to lunch occasionally in the summer. Recently Jim gave me two necklaces, they are inexpensive, around $10 each I would guess. But I am uncomfortable accepting these or any gifts from Jim and I don't know how to tell him without making it seem that I don't wish to be friends. How can I do this? Please help.

Accept the gift and point them out immediately to your parents. Do not think more of it, truly, don't. Even if he has ideas in your direction, you have to participate to allow them to go anywhere. Don't participate in them.

Simply put, be his friend without the confrontation for now, nothing really bad or inappropriate has happened, right? Don't assume it will, nor allow situations to occur where it might. Keep the parents in the loop about all your interactions with him.

Hi, JennySpins!

Is there a reason beyond what you've already mentioned here as to why you are uncomfortable accepting gifts of any kind from Jim?

Thanks!

Tell someone. He'll keep going.. Or tell him that there lovely gifts, but you only enjoy being around him as a friend

I buy gifts for my friends son all the time, even take him to a movie once in a while. His father is absent from his life, he's at a difficult age (15) and doesn't feel like he can talk to his mom. I am his sounding board, his "friend" for lack of a better term.

Unless there is another reason why you feel uncomfortable, I don't see why buying you some inexpensive necklaces should be considered as anything but friendship.

Do tell your parents about this, make them aware of what's going on, also, tell them that this is making you uncomfortable.

Is there something you aren't telling us?

As far as any other excluded information I might have left out, all I can think of is just that I would rather have a casual relationship with him rather than a deeper 'father like' relationship. Mostly I find this uncomfortable because I am not comfortable with most older men that I do not know well, mainly from past experiences with inappropriate attentions from male teachers and other men. But thank you all for your help. I have brought the situation to my mother's attention and I chose to kindly return the gifts and state that I was just not comfortable with him buying me anything and no harm was done. He apologized for making me feel uncomfortable and we are still friends, I just would never want him to misread my actions and think of me in a romantic way. But all is well and thank you all for your suggestions, my main goal was to state that I didn't want to accept gifts, but remain friends and you all got that spot on. Thank you again.

Glad everything worked out, I just want to mention again what others have said. It may not be a romantic thing. My moms friend gave me money for car as a gift, so did my sisters friends dad, and so did my sisters dad (we have differ dads). Its just how dads probably think they can help.