Recently, I purchased my gift online for my tie-loving giftee, and I had it shipped to my residence. It was no surprise, therefore, when I got a knock at my door from the UPS guy and a small delivery from The Tie Bar. It was only when I looked a little closer at the package that I realized it was FOR me from my match, not the package I was going to send out.

When I opened it up, I discovered not one but two beautiful ties from my match (whose real name I know, but not his reddit name...). The first tie is a skinny baby pink-and-navy striped tie that I think looks great with my navy slacks and white shirt (even though I'm wearing khakis in the photo, which also looks pretty good). The other tie is my very first bow tie! A burgundy-and-gold striped pattern for which I desperately need to go buy a new matching shirt now. The white shirt will suffice until then, but I love it!

I'm not going to tell you all how long I spent attempting to actually TIE said bow tie, but I FINALLY got it to work out, and I think it looks fantastic! I can tell I definitely need to practice a little more (with the videos on YouTube as suggested by my match), but I cannot wait to wear it to work and shock the living heck out of everyone!

Thanks so much for the gift, G.H. - as the good Doctor says, "bow ties are cool" but you are even cooler! I've done 6 exchanges now, and this one has been my favorite!