Need some advice

[ehidle]

Okay, I need some advice from the peanut gallery.

My girlfriend's birthday was this past weekend, and so a couple of months ago I put up the money (before I found out about my pay cut at work - grumble grumble) to order a compact 9mm carry pistol for her. I thought that would be a decent starting point for her to get into shooting. She passed the PICS and took possession of it the other night.

So, we go up to the range last night for her to try it out for the first time, and because she'd never shot there before, they made her prove she could shoot on a .22 revolver before they would let her shoot anything bigger.

She shot about a 3" group at 7 yards, which wasn't bad at all considering their rental .22 revolver is a colossal piece of crap and she'd never shot it before.

Anyway, I loaded up a round in the 9mm and she fired it. I guess the recoil was more than she was expecting, because she turned to me and said, "I don't like it." She did fire a few more out of it, but she is basically a little intimidated by the gun.

We talked about it on the way home, and she did enjoy shooting their .22 revolver because it was not at all intimidating and she felt more in-control of it. She said she didn't like the 9mm because it felt unwieldy and as if she didn't have good control over it.

I think she could get used to it with time, but she is definitely not comfortable with the gun right now. As soon as we got home, she started looking at .22 revolvers on the Internet. Heh..

My question is, what do I do? I can't afford to buy another gun, and neither can she. I don't want to sell the brand new 9mm because I'd only end up losing $100 on it, and I think she could grow to like it with enough time. We could keep paying to rent the .22 revolver for her, but that's also just a waste of money.

I don't really know what to do at this point, so I'd really appreciate any advice. Thanks in advance!