Me on Valentine’s Day.
I’ve never been able to get worked up enough about Valentine’s day to care if I don’t have a date, and it’s a Hallmark holiday, it doesn’t reflect what love really is, and blah blah blah. But I still like it. It’s fun to have one day a year when, if you’re with someone, you can do something that you’ll both remember, simply by virtue of it falling on this one day.
Throughout most of college, I spent Valentine’s day with Sumeet (college boyfriend, now best friend). Sophomore year we went to dinner at SushiSamba, my favorite Japanese fusion restaurant in the city, and junior year we wet to the Picasso/Matisse exhibit at MoMA in Queens. But last year was the best, even though all our plans went to hell. I was working as an editor at NYU’s daily paper, and was used to being at the office until 2am every night of the week. Because it was Valentine’s day, I had asked one of my dateless deputy editors to cover for me so that I could go out. Which worked out, until her boyfriend came in for a surprise visit and I was stuck having to finish out the night. We had plans to go to the NYU production of The Vagina Monologues, so I tried to get my work done early, without success. I went to the play anyway, but got a call from the editor-in-chief during intermission and had to go back. Sumeet came with me, and hung around the newspaper office for hours while I finished my work — and continued to be patient and nice even after I was cranky and mean about our night being ruined. We had dinner plans after the play, but as the hours went by it became clear that we weren’t going to make it to any restaurants before closing. Finally, at almost 11pm, my work was almost done, and he called every restaurant he could think of asking if they’d seat us. None would. He was starving and cranky, I was starving and cranky… it was bad. He finally called our favorite Italian place, who said they’d deliver — but that they’d be at his apartment in 10 minutes. We hustled out of the office, but it was pouring rain and I was in heels, and there was no way I was going to be able to walk fast enough to get to his apartment by the time the food came. And as New Yorkers know, there are never any cabs around Union Square when it rains, so that wasn’t an option. Instead, Sumeet gave me his umbrella and, in his nice clothes and dress shoes, sprinted back to his apartment in the downpour. By the time I hobbled there, he had the food laid out on plates, a dozen roses on the table, a card for me, a bottle of wine, and candles lit around the room. It’s hard to stay cranky after all that. We had a quiet, private, amazing dinner, with the usual great conversation. It was low-key, fun, and incredibly thoughtful — and this was at the point where we weren’t technically a couple, so it didn’t feel like it was done out of obligation. It was just nice.
And that, friends, is my best Valentine’s day ever. Tonight, I’m meeting up with Shannon (the roommate) and Sumeet for a glass of wine, then dinner at a surprise location chosen by Sumeet. I can’t wait. Until then, it’s catching up on the reading I haven’t done this week.
Now, your turn. Best Valentine’s Day ever. Or, if you’ve got a good story, give us your worst.
Trip on the old California Zephyr from Chicago all the way to the West Coast. Valentines day occured somewhere on the Western Slope of the Rockies. It is rumored that alcohol was involved. Rest censored by g/f.
Best Valentine’s day ever: tonight, when my wife and I mark our first Vday as a couple.
Worst: 1998. It involved an alcoholic ex-girlfriend who decided she wanted decided to get back together just so we wouldn’t be alone that day. I went along with the plan. It ended up in tears, spilt wine, vomit,histrionics in front of all of our neighbors, endless recriminations, and what can only be described as a sad mercy/obligation f*ck (on both our parts) to the sounds of the Steve Miller’s greatest hits playing endlessly on the CD player.
Ryan always works on V-Day so I do weird things for him that he gets at work. Last year I dropped off a bunch of vagina-shaped chocolates and weird coupons redeemable for things like “an awkward hug in the shape of a capital A” and “oral sex to orgasm or for five minutes-whichever comes first.” He laughed his ass off and bought me flowers complete with funny haiku. Aw.
I don’t have any good stories. Even my candy hearts are mocking me, with messages like “wise up” and “get real.”
I’ve been stood up on Valentine’s Day (which actually turned out to be a relief, since it was a first date, and neither of us realized what date Thursday was when we set things up for Thursday), and I broke up with someone on V-Day (also, in retrospect, a relief, but it was a bit difficult being out with him amidst a whole lot of happy couples while we were staring daggers at each other).
The day just serves as a reminder that I’m not done with bad first dates.
I once made a cheesy mix tape with such songs as Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes” and Simple Mind’s “Don’t You Forget About Me.” The rest of the album’s selections were similar types of music.
I am not ashamed to admit doing it… although looking back I think I could have done better with the song selection.
So it isn’t really a good story, but if intentions are worth anything then it wasn’t a bad story either LOL.
Hey you aren’t a true romantic unless you have made a mixed tape! :D
In our 1st of 10 wonderful years together my new at the time partner rented a hotel room and lovingly prepared it ahead of time for me. She had it decorated with rose petals strewn about on the bed and candles. There was a lovely array of chocolate, fruit, cheese, and crackers with champagne chilling on ice. It was incredibly romantic and I loved her cheesy self for it all night long!!
Actually, I’m thinking my best Valentine’s Day will be this Friday, when my boyfriend flies up to DC for V-Day/my birthday this weekend. It’s our first one together (we’ve been dating since last April) and I’m cooking him dinner using my microwave and hot pot. He’s providing the chocolate. The rest… well, um, I’m just hoping my roommate decides to stay out for a while with her friends. :D
I don’t have any specifically romantic V-Day related memories, but I’ll let you in on my tradition as a perpetually dateless high-schooler/undergrad with lots of awesome girls as friends.
Back in the day, maybe grade 10, I e-mailed all my (girl) friends to tell them how much I appreciated having them in my life, and how awesome they are, and everything. It became a yearly tradition for a while. Cheesy, dorky, and sweet, like a classic Valentine’s Day. Don’t let datelessness keep you from doing something dorky for someone you love.
One year, I think when I was thirteen or fourteen, I got a really nice bunch of purple orchids delivered to my door. The card just said, “Happy Valentine’s Day,” and was unsigned. The handwriting looked like another middle-schooler. I still have no idea who sent them.
It’s actually, I think, our most ancient holiday. It is a Church holiday.
For those who don’t know, Valentine was a Bishop in the Eatern Empire (c. 400 CE). The Emperor at the time believed married men made bad soldiers so he forbade recruitable young men from marrying. Valentine secretly kept marrying couples. Long story short he was caught out and executed; i.e., became a martyr. He was sainted and Feb. 14 is his feast day. He died for love. Is it true? Dunno.
Don’t remember any good or bad Valentine’s Days. They just don’t stand out for me (maybe ’cause I’ve always been single). Usually I buy a bottle of Mier’s sparkling grape juice of some sort (previously under 21, currently in a dorm room on a dry campus), a box of chocolates, and some kind of fruit (long-stemmed strawberries are a personal gift from the Goddess, I swear), and sit in my room enjoying the various treats and fantasizing about whatever fictional character I happen to have a thing for at the time.
(And getting off at some point, just to spite the “purity day” morons.)
I just had a really good Valentine’s Day dinner.
Went out for dinner at the semi-Mexican semi-vegetarian restaurant down the street with the V-Day McGill crowd. What’s better than a long delicious dinner with a bunch of ass-kicking Feminists? Not much, that’s what.
My best Valentine’s Day: this one. I recently got back together (sorta) with a guy I have loved for more than 50 years (I’m Older, remember) without realizing until recently that he felt the same way. And this year, he gave me a Valentine! So I gave him a potted jasmine. Whoopee!
I haven’t really had a good V-Day yet. I’ve only been with someone on one V-Day, and I was a very cynical sophomore in high school then. I didn’t get my girlfriend anything. I’m a bastard like that. The most memorable one was two years ago. It snowed in the D/FDub that day, fulfilling the yearly requirement of .5 inches of snow for the Metroplex.
And second Kyra. Fuck Purity Day.
What’s Purity Day?
I got a nice surprise when I got home from work today. My dogwalker had left me a chocolate-covered strawberry in the fridge.
I think a lot of my anxiety about Valentine’s Day stems from elementary school and the whole Valentine thing. In kindergarten, you had to get one for everybody, but once you hit 1st grade, you only had to get them for people you liked. So the more Valentines you got, the more popular you were — and of course everybody could see how popular you were. One year, I got two. I might have gotten three, but my best friend was in a different homeroom.
Day of Purity, a day for fundy Christians to be all smug and shit.
Complete with pledge card.
Click the links at your own risk.
Thankfully although there’s plenty of V-Day ads aimed at adults there’s no tradition of teeny tiny tots handing out cards at school. It starts to happen a bit in high school, but definitely not in kindy.
My husband of nearly 15 years spent our 15th V-Day with me going to see Brokeback Mountain while the kids were in school, and eating lunch at a sushi train place. We don’t do the chocs/flowers thing. Seeing BM was his idea – we planned to see it anyway, but I didn’t suggest it for V-day, he did, responding to my raised eyebrow with “what? It’s a love story isn’t it?”
I love my honey.
Hey! I think that I met that woman… is that picture from downtown Havana?
Zuzu, we have to have valentines for each kid or you don’t get to participate in E’s school. Thank god.
This year we handmade our valentines with products on hand and apparently a few kids turned up their noses at Ethan. Which, of course, pissed me off. Handmade valentine WITH CANDY? Or Spiderman? Their priorities are clearly fucked up.
Close call – either the one when I was 19 and scored with the guy my friend brought to our single’s party and she wasn’t even mad at me, or last night when I saw Bellydance Superstars with some friends, nothing date-y about it. Hmm … neither of those involve any of my partnered Valentine’s Days.
Re: ancientness of the holiday
Valentine’s day as we know it certainly was named after that certain saint. BUT the tradition of celebrating love/sex in the middle of February goes much, much further back, at least to the Roman tradition of Lupercalia. You see, wolves start to go into heat and mate this early in the year in milder climates. (Hey, do they even still HAVE wolves in Italy? I swear — I really don’t know.) People tended to get a bit of spring fever around then, too, so festivals where the youngsters got paired off by picking names out of a box were fairly common, at least in the Roman Empire.
Really simplified, but much more satisfying than bloody “Purity Day”. Good grief!
Best- this one. With the most wonderful man ever, we had each planned to do something extra-nice for the other, and it was a nice chance to go all out being extra good the other.
Best-in-a-totally-different way:
I roasted an 18 lb turkey (my first!) when I lived in the dorms, and hosted dinner for about a dozen unattached females. Dinner was roasted turkey,homemade stuffing, baked potatoes, and green beans, and dessert was apple crisp, which was unintentionally timed just perfectly for the vanilla ice cream to melt a little on top when it was served…..