There were several pleasant surprises in the gift my match sent me, which had nothing to do with the gift.

Firstly, my match very meticulously wrapped the socks in a wrapping paper which appears to be identical to one I used to wrap a Christmas present for my grandmother in-law, last year. She and my match are both from the UK. It was a completely unrelated, quite likely unintended, yet very welcome burst of emotion. My grandfather in-law passed, last year.

Secondly, Iguaneye! I pride myself with keeping on top of new developments in the "barefoot" shoe industry, but I've never heard of Iguaneye before receiving this gift.

http://en.iguaneye.com/

I'm very excited to explore them.

As for the gift itself, it was perfect! I provided rather stringent guidelines to my match, largely because my footwear of choice requires toe socks. Yet, even so, there was enough variation to surprise me, and my match certainly did! I love the socks! They will come quite handy in the warmer weather which is soon to come.

Thank you very much! :-)

UPDATE 2014-06-14: I wanted to provide an update after having worn the socks for a bit. They have become my favorite pair! Seriously! They are a bit thinner than the ones I normally wear, but (and this is a big but), they still feel like socks, rather than hosiery (nylons)! I never would have likely tried this specific pair were it not for /u/liz_page85, for fear of them being too thin. Thank you again! :)