I had this situation with my now husband, but it was my birthday and we'd been together about six months. We were like 22/23, similar in age as y'all. My birthday comes around and no present. Not a huge deal, we had other stuff going on like a surprise party, but I did ask a few weeks later. It turned out, he had spent the last four months trying to find me a gift and it wasn't until two days before my birthday that he found "the one", and he didn't realize it would take weeks to get here and he was so upset but didn't want to mention it because it felt awkward. At first, I was like "this mofo is lying" and (he's my husband now, obviously he wasn't) it turns out that the reason he spent so long finding my present was that he wanted it to be great, he was so worried he would disappoint me the first time he gave me something. I come from a wealthier family than he does and I had a lot more disposable income than he did, plus I am a natural gift giver (it's my love language) and unfortunately this combination made him really hard on himself about find a gift good enough for "a girl like me".

The gift arrived about two weeks later. It was an amazing, very pretty custom ring with my birthstone and favorite animal and...I am still blown away by how much effort he must have put into finding it and crafting it's uniqueness with this Etsy artist - who has an 8 week turn around. It's still one of the best gifts I've ever been given.

I'm glad we talked about it, because I knew that he wasn't like my ex, who didn't buy me gifts at holidays because he knew he wasn't going to stay with me. This guy did. That he responds to awkwardness with avoidance, because he expected me to react in a certain way. He learned I wasn't like that, and that my expectations on boyfriends are nowhere near as high as the ones he'd placed on himself. Ask her, casually, and see if it's a BIG underlying issue or just some small ones that can be easily cleared up.