“Would you mind if I touch, if I kiss, if I held you tight in the morning light” ~ Love’s Holiday by Earth, Wind and Fire
Valentine’s Day is not my favorite holiday. Ok, that might not be the clearest statement with which to make my point. I hate Valentine’s Day. That’s better. In fact, it is, by far, my least favorite holiday. This revelation might be surprising considering my unabashed love and devotion for sexy soul music; Teddy Pendergrass, Barry White, Marvin Gaye and the like. First of all, Valentine’s Day isn’t even a real holiday in the most literal of terms. Unless of course, you’re an ultra-devout Catholic who observes all the saint’s days on the calendar in which case, you’re certainly not swimming in my dating pool.
The point I’m trying to make is that no one automatically gets Valentine’s Day off work. If it falls during the week, or on a weekend, then the government doesn’t have it observed on a Monday to create a three day weekend. It’s no Labor Day. Nobody gets paid time and a half, double or triple time for working on Valentine’s Day. It’s no secret Valentine’s Day is a creation of Hallmark to get couples to buy cards, candies, and flowers in the middle of what would otherwise be their slowest time of year. Think about it. There aren’t a lot of cards going out for President’s Day and between New Year’s and Passover/Easter, there’s not much going on in the way of holidays.
I don’t want to give the impression that I’m a total curmudgeon and bare nothing but ill will towards corporate holidays. In fact, that is not the case at all. True, I hate Valentine’s Day (nothing has changed since I wrote that in the first paragraph) and don’t have much use for St. Patrick’s Day (amateur night for drinkers) despite my Irish last name, but I am all for some of the other manufactured holidays. I think Mother’s Day and Father’s Day are great. Parents each deserve their own holiday for all they do, selflessly, year round for their children. If god and our founding forefathers didn’t see fit to put a holiday or two on the calendar for parents, then I’m really glad the good people that put out greeting cards took it upon themselves to step up and create a forum for the formal acknowledgment of moms and dads.
That said, let’s take a little bit of space to look at what chafes my sensitive keester about Valentine’s Day aside from the fact that it is a total corporate invention and meaningless in terms of any relation to the Valentine beatified by the Catholics. The way I see it, Valentine’s Day creates totally unrealistic expectations, not exclusively, but particularly in women, for romance… or an ideal romance that probably doesn’t exist, and, in general, cannot be achieved… at least not on February 14th anyway. In short, it is a holiday, more than any other, made for disappointment.
Valentine’s disappointment can come from anywhere. The expectations are just too high on too many fronts. For starters, there’s the card. What kind of card do you get that special someone on Valentine’s? You can go for the flowery card filled with sentiment and feeling or you can go for the cute, funny card. Get the flowery card filled with sentiment then you run the risk of having to express your feelings with some unknown corporate card writer’s words (true, often times better than anything we can come up with ourselves… it is their JOB after all). If you go for the cute, funny card, then you can be tripped up by a bad punch line, a missed joke, or the perception that you’re just not taking the relationship seriously. What’s more, what if the card you buy uses the word, “L-O-V-E” and you haven’t vocalized that word yet to the person you’re sharing Valentine’s Day with? And, how do you sign the card if you haven’t dropped the “L” word (NOT the L Word featured on Showtime) on your Valentine yet? “This Valentine’s Day, I am so thankful for the warmth and depth of the love we share. ~ Best Regards, Chris.”
Once you get past the card, then there’s the candy and/or flowers to deal with. Both of these gifts seem traditional and pretty straight forward, but don’t be fooled. As a guy, if you buy your sweetie-pie a nice box of chocolates for Valentine’s Day, then you’d better be pretty sure of a few pieces of crucial information. First, is your date on a diet? If she is, then you’re better off not even mentioning the word chocolate out of fear you’ll be exposed as an agent of evil and accused of sabotage. Next, you need to know what her favorite kind of chocolate is. Then, you get her exactly that kind of chocolate. Substitutions are not acceptable. Don’t show up with the See’s Nuts and Chews when you know your girlfriend likes the See’s Dark Chocolates. Sure, you might like the nuts and chews better, there are plenty of dark chocolates in that box, and you’re going to share, but that box is just going to remind her that your were in the right store, with the right opportunity to get her favorite, and you failed her. Valentine’s Day is all about disappointment.
The same obstacles face you when trying to buy flowers for your date. Once again, your best bet is finding out what flowers she likes best and then getting exactly that. Does this mean you’re thoughtful or just predictable? Who knows? Of course, roses are big on Valentine’s Day. Supposedly, giving red roses means love and yellow roses mean friendship. I forget what the pink and white ones mean. I think the pink ones mean cramps, but I’m probably wrong. I wonder who came up with the implied meanings attached to flowers anyway? I suspect it is another corporate creation, but it might be a cultural thing like the definition attached to male ear piercings… left is right (straight) and right is wrong (gay). From personal experience, I find it hard to go wrong with buying women flowers, but I also know it is easy not to meet expectations in that department as well. Say, the flowers wilt too quickly after they’re given, or you just pick up a bunch at the supermarket and the carnations and angel’s breath aren’t appreciated? Disappointment is the word of the day.
These are just the basic elements of my hatred of Valentine’s Day. I haven’t even touched upon how difficult and annoying it is to try to make dinner reservations for that night. Just thinking about that stresses me out. Ok, ok, it’s not that difficult if you want to eat your dinner at 4:30 in the afternoon or you really think your date will enjoy a dinner at Hometown Buffet or International House of Pancakes. Outside of that, finding a place that a) is delicious, b) has that certain ambiance and atmosphere and c) can seat you, is an unenviable task akin to spending all eternity solving Where’s Waldo puzzles. Get past that and then there is the question of gift giving (beyond the traditional flowers and candy). Sure, a thoughtful gift is appreciated, but does one have to be given on Valentine’s Day? Why not any other day? What kind of gift should you give? Is my date going to get me a gift and I’m not going to have anything to give her? Is there a point in a relationship when a gift on Valentine’s Day is expected? Will my gift be perceived as sweet and thoughtful or needy and desperate? I guess married people don’t have to worry about these questions anymore, but for single me, just typing these questions out (and the natural pondering that goes with them) is making me anxious… and a little stressed out. I can feel it in my neck and shoulders. I’ll need a massage when I’m done here.
So, let’s say, for arguments sake, that you’re a guy, it’s February 15th, and you’ve just spent what you thought was a very special and successful Valentine’s Day with that special someone in your life. She’s even looked deep into your eyes and thanked you for a wonderful time. Trust me here. You’re not out of the woods yet. What you’re forgetting to consider, or just don’t know, is this is where the real disappointment begins. The day after Valentine’s Day is an unofficial non-gift-giving holiday in which women compare just what exactly their boyfriends, husbands and lovers did for them that day. It’s not important whether or not you think you’ve met her expectations. What you’re competing against here is what every other guy she’s ever spent a Valentine’s with has done for her plus what each and every one of her girlfriends’ significant others did for them while you two were spending the previous night together. For example, you got her a cute card, a dozen red roses, a box of her favorite chocolates, and a dinner reservation at the fancy new restaurant she had only mentioned in passing that she wanted to try. At the end of the evening, you go and make sweet, steamy, monkey-biting love and spend the rest of the night cuddling in lovers’ bliss. You, as a guy, think you’ve done a darn good job at making the night special. But before you go and get too high on your internal catnip, take a moment to think about the comparisons you potentially have to live up to. Let’s say that your girlfriend’s girlfriend at the office got two dozen red roses delivered to her at work from her beau and then he left a trail of rose petals to the hot bath he had drawn for her when she got home from work. What’s more, he made his card by hand… and had gourmet truffles shipped in special, by air, from Belgium. Or, he rented a boat for a candlelit dinner for two in the harbor (I hate these guys… fucking assholes… ruining it for the rest of us). All I’m saying here is that these comparisons, fair or not, are real… and as soon as your significant other gets one-upped by something somebody has done for one of her girlfriends, co-workers or casual acquaintances the envy announces itself and a certain level of disappointment creeps in directly proportional to the amount of discrepancy between the perceived more thoughtful, romantic Valentine and the amount of effort you, yourself put forward. And if someone she knows gets a diamond on Valentine’s Day, forget about it. That sparkly rock is trump.
My usual tactic with Valentine’s Day avoidance, since it is impossible to be a single man every year when 2-14 rolls around, is an early warning system. I find it best to let my anti-Valentine’s feeling be known well in advance of the holiday… say, the week before Thanksgiving… or at least pre-Kwanzaa. That way, when Valentine’s week rolls around, the foundation has been laid for low expectations come the 14th of February. The news that you hate Valentine’s Day and refuse to acknowledge it is nothing you want to spring on your sweetheart the week of. So I don’t seem like a total hater and an unromantic slob, I should let it be known I am not totally opposed to celebrating the holiday. For me, a perfect Valentine’s Day would be a quiet night in with a nice home cooked dinner, some sexy music and a bottle of wine… just leave out the cards, gifts, dinner reservations and expectations.
“Love can be bitter love can be sweet. Sometimes devotion and sometimes deceit.” ~ Joy & Pain by Maze
This year, for me, Valentine’s Day proved to be far less than perfect. First of all, I don’t have a girlfriend, so you’d think it would have been an easy non-event holiday for me, just like any other day in the week. Not so fast. By saying I’m single, doesn’t necessarily mean I’m not getting any. Such was the case this year. Last year, for approximately 9 ½ weeks late last summer, I had a girlfriend, Katherine, who lived out in Pasadena. She broke things off with me in early October, but made it clear that she still wanted to be friends. I’m not one to put much stock in the promise of friendship from a woman who is kicking me to the curb, so I let her go and got on with what was going on in my life at the time, which included moving to Orange County to get away from LA and the gunshots which far too frequently were ringing out on my block. Katherine, however, persisted with the notion that the two of us be friends. Once she learned that I was moving and where to, she began calling more and more. We got together once over the holidays and our “just friends” status was upgraded to “friends with benefits.”
Considering my circumstances; single, car-less, living in OC, I was thrilled to be getting some. I’m definitely not the most dateable guy in OC. I know all too well that getting laid every so often goes along way towards keeping me normal(ish). Katherine and I had a long talk about what our benefits situation entailed. She made it crystal clear that we were just friends and any expectations on my part that there was anything more there were unfounded. When we got together a couple more times in January, she would always remind me, “I want to make sure we’re clear. This is just a friend’s thing.” Ok. I get it. And I’m happy to be getting a piece of it, if you know what I mean. We got together the last weekend in January, and aside from the usual friends reminder, she also threw in, for good measure that, “I never felt that spark of love for you in my heart when we were together.” When I asked what that meant, she just shrugged and said, “I dunno. I just didn’t.”
The week leading up to Valentine’s Day I got a call from Katherine. She wanted to know what was going on in my world, how things have been, and all that. She wanted to chat. I was happy to oblige. As the conversation progressed, she ambushed me with the question (which was really more of a statement), “So am I to assume you’re not going to ask me out for Valentine’s Day?” I told her she was right, I wasn’t. That didn’t go over very well. “Just because we’re not a couple in the traditional sense doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate some romance on Valentine’s Day.” I tried to go into all the reasons why I hate Valentine’s Day and refuse to celebrate it, but it was too late. I hadn’t laid the foundation in advance for this nuance of my world view, and she was having none of it. It became very clear that if I ever wanted to experience the benefits aspect of our friendship again, then I’d better get my act together and toe the line. My plans were cemented by implied consequence.
She told me she always wanted to spend a romantic night together in a hotel and thought that would be fun way to celebrate Valentine’s Day. Ok, I’m in. I went online and made reservations for the night at one of the nicer hotels in Pasadena. I told Katherine to pick a restaurant in the area for dinner since I don’t know my way around Pasadena too well, and to make a reservation. I went out and picked up a nice card (I went the cute/funny route), a box of her favorite chocolates, a nice bottle of cabernet and made her a mix cd of some of my favorite sexy soul classics. We were planning a romantic evening after all, and who knows setting the mood better than Barry White and The Isley Brothers?
The day of, I rode the train up to LA and then the Gold Line out to Pasadena. Katherine and I met up at the hotel that evening. My first clue that this Valentine’s Day was going to be about my own disappointment, rather than hers, came shortly after we got to the room. I gave Katherine her card, chocolates and sexy ass soul cd… and she had nothing for me… not even a lousy Hallmark card. I was a little miffed. Hadn’t she been the one to make a big deal out of insisting we celebrate my least favorite holiday? Hadn’t I acquiesced? Doesn’t that get me a card? Oh well, I’m not one to make a big deal of not getting a gift on what should be a non-gifting holiday anyway, so I let it go.
Katherine was starving so we made our way out to dinner to the restaurant she picked. The place was packed, so I was thankful that we had reservations, until I found out we didn’t. We walked up to the hostess and Katherine said right away that we didn’t have reservations and how long would the wait be. The hostess smiled and told us it’d be at least two hours if she could seat us at all. This was Valentine’s Day after all, sheesh! Needless to say, that wasn’t going to work. We were hungry. I hadn’t eaten since breakfast and had spent the day jockeying north on assorted modes of mass transit. I was good. I only mentioned in passing that finding the restaurant and making a reservation was her sole responsibility for the evening and she hadn’t done it. We walked around the area trying to find another place to eat, but everywhere we went it was the same story…. 1 – 2 hour wait if we could be seated at all. I was thinking IHOP and the lingonberry pancakes were in my immediate dining future when we happened past a California Pizza Kitchen. There was a massive crowd milling around the door and the hostess station, but I had spied a couple empty seats at the bar. I squeezed past the throng by the door and caught the hostess’ attention just as she finished telling someone the wait was about two hours. I asked if we could sit at the bar, and she just pointed us over and said, “Go.”
I was pretty impressed with myself. This was Valentine’s Day after all and I had just gotten us seats for dinner, at a decent place (just decent… CPK is no Mr Pizza Factory), without reservations or waiting. What’s more this was Pasadena and my powers of influence are generally limited to Los Angeles. I expected some acknowledgment and appreciation for scoring the seats, but none was offered. Instead, she flagged down the bartender and got the cocktails portion of our evening underway. After our drinks arrived, she reached over and put her hand on my arm and told me that she had packed her extra special sexy underwear for the night and that I would be seeing it later. Then she said, “Y’know, the thing about sexy underwear is that I'll only get to wear it for about fifteen minutes and then it spends the rest of the night on the floor.”
That caught my attention and got me feeling a lot better about the direction the evening was taking. I forgot all about not getting a card or a gift or that dinner reservations had not been made. I was going to be seeing the extra sexy underwear later. During dinner, the tenor of the conversation changed. She started talking about the future and how she wanted to have children. I played along mostly by keeping my mouth either shut or stuffed with food. Then she proposed the idea that if in two years we were both still single then we should have a baby together. This is the same woman who had told me a week prior that she had never felt that spark of love in her heart for me… now she’s telling me she wants to have my baby. Needless to say, I’m confused. I tried not to let it show. Truth be told, the prospect of sexy underwear in my immediate future lingering in the front of mind was probably the only thing that prevented me from totally losing my smooth.
The last thing I ever expected to be having that night with my ex with whom I shared a benefits arrangement was a discussion about having children together. She told me she thought I was smart and handsome and that we’d make an attractive, intelligent child together. I couldn’t argue with that and I didn’t though I did know for certain I didn’t want to impregnate this woman… ever. I told her I was surprised to be hearing this from her considering it was her who had kicked me to the curb a few months prior. I was really just treading water in the conversation looking for any means with which to change the subject. My out came when the check arrived. I half expected her to pick it up considering I had already paid for the hotel room and she hadn’t gotten me a gift or even bothered to make the dinner reservation, but instead she got up and headed for the restroom. I paid the bill and tried to keep my focus on the promise of sexy underwear looming in my future.
“I don’t wanna feel no clothes. I don’t wanna see no panties. And take off that brassiere, my dear. Everybody's gone. I'm taking the receiver off the phone.” ~ Love’s Serenade by Barry White
After dinner, Katherine and I took a walk around downtown Pasadena. We talked about going to a movie or to a bar for a drink, but we were both happy to be outside and neither activity materialized. Eventually we headed back to the hotel and up to our room. I opened the wine. She grabbed her bag and excused herself to the bathroom. I knew what was coming next and she didn’t disappoint when she emerged. Katherine isn’t the tallest, leggiest girl I’ve dated, but her figure just doesn’t quit. She has long legs for her relatively small size and she knows how to accent them with heels. On this night, the heels were pink platforms matching the lacey pink g-string and push-up bra combo she was wearing. She hadn’t been lying when she said she’d only get to wear these for about fifteen minutes before they’d be spending the rest of the night on the floor. She strutted her stuff around the room for a few minutes, doing her best stripper impersonation, really showing off her god-given assets before kicking off her shoes and curling up in bed next to me.
We kissed for a few minutes before she rolled over on her stomach and asked me to give her a massage. I started by rubbing her feet, which I know she loves, and then moved my way up her body, massaging her calves and legs. I was in no hurry and what I had in mind for us was going to take all night. Eventually, I climbed up on top of her and positioned my weight over her ass so I could rub her back and shoulders. It was then that I noticed she was no longer responding to my touch. I leaned in close to her cheek and I could hear her lightly snoring. She was asleep. I poked her hard with my finger to wake her dead ass up, and all I got in response was a sleepy motion like she was swatting at flies. She was out cold. Outrage doesn’t even begin to describe what I was feeling. Is indignation a better word? I had been lied to. Her snores were the proof. She was dead asleep and the sexy underwear was NOT on the floor.
I tried to be optimistic figuring she’d wake up in a few minutes. It was only 9:30, but I was just kidding myself. I sat in the cushy chair at the corner of the room and drank a couple glasses of wine. The only change in her status was that the snoring got louder. Eventually I polished off the bottle, and then I got up and took a long shower. When I came out, she had gotten herself under the covers. I checked and the sexy underwear was still not on the floor. Liar. I turned on the TV and watched Live Free or Die Hard on HBO… from beginning to end. I didn’t bother to turn the volume down. She never moved. Eventually, exhausted and outraged, I managed to drift off to sleep.
Sometime around 5:30 a.m. Katherine woke up and grabbed my cock, which of course, woke me up. Rather than apologizing for having passed out on me, she was upset that I hadn’t woken her up. By this point, she had been asleep for eight full hours. I had been asleep for maybe three. I told her I tried to wake her, but it was no use. She wasn’t convinced, but she still held onto my manhood which was awakening faster than I was. We kissed for a few minutes before she pulled me on top of her for ten minutes of what I can best describe as lame sex. This was not the all-night circus of freakiness I had envisioned. Afterwards, I went back to sleep. In the morning (the actual morning, the one where the sun is in the sky), when I woke up, I pressed her for round two and was rejected. She wasn’t in the mood anymore and had a headache. She did take me to IHOP for breakfast though. I had the lingonberry pancakes.
If I take a minute to look back through my life at all the Valentine’s Days I’ve celebrated and not celebrated, this one ranks right up there with the worst of the worst. The memory of her prancing around the room in the sexy underwear does little to temper my disappointment. Didn’t I mention earlier that Valentine’s Day is all about disappointment? Still, there is a time in my life when I can remember only good things associated with February 14th. This time is from about Kindergarten thru 4th grade. It was then that we made cards for our parents in class and decorated brown paper bags with hearts made from red and pink construction paper that we’d later attach to the backs of our chairs. All the kids in class would go around and deposit little cards pressed out of perforated paper into each and every bag at every desk along with a handful of the little sweetheart candies. “Be Mine.” “Kiss Me.” It didn’t matter whether it was a boy or girl you were giving the card to. Everyone got one from everybody. That was the rule. I wish I could remember the sentiments expressed on those little cards, but the only thing that comes to mind is the, “I Ch-Choo Choose You” made famous by the Simpsons (Lisa gave that one to Ralph Wiggum). In retrospect, it was a very socialist take on Valentine’s Day we were subjected to in the LA Unified School District, the mandated equal treatment, but there was also no disappointment. Back then, there were certainly no promises of sexy underwear spending the night on the floor being broken. Of course, that would have been gross and in violation of more cootie laws than I can possibly imagine. That kind of disappointment is for grownups and that’s what Valentine’s Day is all about.
Valentine’s Day is not my favorite holiday. Ok, that might not be the clearest statement with which to make my point. I hate Valentine’s Day. That’s better. In fact, it is, by far, my least favorite holiday. This revelation might be surprising considering my unabashed love and devotion for sexy soul music; Teddy Pendergrass, Barry White, Marvin Gaye and the like. First of all, Valentine’s Day isn’t even a real holiday in the most literal of terms. Unless of course, you’re an ultra-devout Catholic who observes all the saint’s days on the calendar in which case, you’re certainly not swimming in my dating pool.
The point I’m trying to make is that no one automatically gets Valentine’s Day off work. If it falls during the week, or on a weekend, then the government doesn’t have it observed on a Monday to create a three day weekend. It’s no Labor Day. Nobody gets paid time and a half, double or triple time for working on Valentine’s Day. It’s no secret Valentine’s Day is a creation of Hallmark to get couples to buy cards, candies, and flowers in the middle of what would otherwise be their slowest time of year. Think about it. There aren’t a lot of cards going out for President’s Day and between New Year’s and Passover/Easter, there’s not much going on in the way of holidays.
I don’t want to give the impression that I’m a total curmudgeon and bare nothing but ill will towards corporate holidays. In fact, that is not the case at all. True, I hate Valentine’s Day (nothing has changed since I wrote that in the first paragraph) and don’t have much use for St. Patrick’s Day (amateur night for drinkers) despite my Irish last name, but I am all for some of the other manufactured holidays. I think Mother’s Day and Father’s Day are great. Parents each deserve their own holiday for all they do, selflessly, year round for their children. If god and our founding forefathers didn’t see fit to put a holiday or two on the calendar for parents, then I’m really glad the good people that put out greeting cards took it upon themselves to step up and create a forum for the formal acknowledgment of moms and dads.
That said, let’s take a little bit of space to look at what chafes my sensitive keester about Valentine’s Day aside from the fact that it is a total corporate invention and meaningless in terms of any relation to the Valentine beatified by the Catholics. The way I see it, Valentine’s Day creates totally unrealistic expectations, not exclusively, but particularly in women, for romance… or an ideal romance that probably doesn’t exist, and, in general, cannot be achieved… at least not on February 14th anyway. In short, it is a holiday, more than any other, made for disappointment.
Valentine’s disappointment can come from anywhere. The expectations are just too high on too many fronts. For starters, there’s the card. What kind of card do you get that special someone on Valentine’s? You can go for the flowery card filled with sentiment and feeling or you can go for the cute, funny card. Get the flowery card filled with sentiment then you run the risk of having to express your feelings with some unknown corporate card writer’s words (true, often times better than anything we can come up with ourselves… it is their JOB after all). If you go for the cute, funny card, then you can be tripped up by a bad punch line, a missed joke, or the perception that you’re just not taking the relationship seriously. What’s more, what if the card you buy uses the word, “L-O-V-E” and you haven’t vocalized that word yet to the person you’re sharing Valentine’s Day with? And, how do you sign the card if you haven’t dropped the “L” word (NOT the L Word featured on Showtime) on your Valentine yet? “This Valentine’s Day, I am so thankful for the warmth and depth of the love we share. ~ Best Regards, Chris.”
Once you get past the card, then there’s the candy and/or flowers to deal with. Both of these gifts seem traditional and pretty straight forward, but don’t be fooled. As a guy, if you buy your sweetie-pie a nice box of chocolates for Valentine’s Day, then you’d better be pretty sure of a few pieces of crucial information. First, is your date on a diet? If she is, then you’re better off not even mentioning the word chocolate out of fear you’ll be exposed as an agent of evil and accused of sabotage. Next, you need to know what her favorite kind of chocolate is. Then, you get her exactly that kind of chocolate. Substitutions are not acceptable. Don’t show up with the See’s Nuts and Chews when you know your girlfriend likes the See’s Dark Chocolates. Sure, you might like the nuts and chews better, there are plenty of dark chocolates in that box, and you’re going to share, but that box is just going to remind her that your were in the right store, with the right opportunity to get her favorite, and you failed her. Valentine’s Day is all about disappointment.
The same obstacles face you when trying to buy flowers for your date. Once again, your best bet is finding out what flowers she likes best and then getting exactly that. Does this mean you’re thoughtful or just predictable? Who knows? Of course, roses are big on Valentine’s Day. Supposedly, giving red roses means love and yellow roses mean friendship. I forget what the pink and white ones mean. I think the pink ones mean cramps, but I’m probably wrong. I wonder who came up with the implied meanings attached to flowers anyway? I suspect it is another corporate creation, but it might be a cultural thing like the definition attached to male ear piercings… left is right (straight) and right is wrong (gay). From personal experience, I find it hard to go wrong with buying women flowers, but I also know it is easy not to meet expectations in that department as well. Say, the flowers wilt too quickly after they’re given, or you just pick up a bunch at the supermarket and the carnations and angel’s breath aren’t appreciated? Disappointment is the word of the day.
These are just the basic elements of my hatred of Valentine’s Day. I haven’t even touched upon how difficult and annoying it is to try to make dinner reservations for that night. Just thinking about that stresses me out. Ok, ok, it’s not that difficult if you want to eat your dinner at 4:30 in the afternoon or you really think your date will enjoy a dinner at Hometown Buffet or International House of Pancakes. Outside of that, finding a place that a) is delicious, b) has that certain ambiance and atmosphere and c) can seat you, is an unenviable task akin to spending all eternity solving Where’s Waldo puzzles. Get past that and then there is the question of gift giving (beyond the traditional flowers and candy). Sure, a thoughtful gift is appreciated, but does one have to be given on Valentine’s Day? Why not any other day? What kind of gift should you give? Is my date going to get me a gift and I’m not going to have anything to give her? Is there a point in a relationship when a gift on Valentine’s Day is expected? Will my gift be perceived as sweet and thoughtful or needy and desperate? I guess married people don’t have to worry about these questions anymore, but for single me, just typing these questions out (and the natural pondering that goes with them) is making me anxious… and a little stressed out. I can feel it in my neck and shoulders. I’ll need a massage when I’m done here.
So, let’s say, for arguments sake, that you’re a guy, it’s February 15th, and you’ve just spent what you thought was a very special and successful Valentine’s Day with that special someone in your life. She’s even looked deep into your eyes and thanked you for a wonderful time. Trust me here. You’re not out of the woods yet. What you’re forgetting to consider, or just don’t know, is this is where the real disappointment begins. The day after Valentine’s Day is an unofficial non-gift-giving holiday in which women compare just what exactly their boyfriends, husbands and lovers did for them that day. It’s not important whether or not you think you’ve met her expectations. What you’re competing against here is what every other guy she’s ever spent a Valentine’s with has done for her plus what each and every one of her girlfriends’ significant others did for them while you two were spending the previous night together. For example, you got her a cute card, a dozen red roses, a box of her favorite chocolates, and a dinner reservation at the fancy new restaurant she had only mentioned in passing that she wanted to try. At the end of the evening, you go and make sweet, steamy, monkey-biting love and spend the rest of the night cuddling in lovers’ bliss. You, as a guy, think you’ve done a darn good job at making the night special. But before you go and get too high on your internal catnip, take a moment to think about the comparisons you potentially have to live up to. Let’s say that your girlfriend’s girlfriend at the office got two dozen red roses delivered to her at work from her beau and then he left a trail of rose petals to the hot bath he had drawn for her when she got home from work. What’s more, he made his card by hand… and had gourmet truffles shipped in special, by air, from Belgium. Or, he rented a boat for a candlelit dinner for two in the harbor (I hate these guys… fucking assholes… ruining it for the rest of us). All I’m saying here is that these comparisons, fair or not, are real… and as soon as your significant other gets one-upped by something somebody has done for one of her girlfriends, co-workers or casual acquaintances the envy announces itself and a certain level of disappointment creeps in directly proportional to the amount of discrepancy between the perceived more thoughtful, romantic Valentine and the amount of effort you, yourself put forward. And if someone she knows gets a diamond on Valentine’s Day, forget about it. That sparkly rock is trump.
My usual tactic with Valentine’s Day avoidance, since it is impossible to be a single man every year when 2-14 rolls around, is an early warning system. I find it best to let my anti-Valentine’s feeling be known well in advance of the holiday… say, the week before Thanksgiving… or at least pre-Kwanzaa. That way, when Valentine’s week rolls around, the foundation has been laid for low expectations come the 14th of February. The news that you hate Valentine’s Day and refuse to acknowledge it is nothing you want to spring on your sweetheart the week of. So I don’t seem like a total hater and an unromantic slob, I should let it be known I am not totally opposed to celebrating the holiday. For me, a perfect Valentine’s Day would be a quiet night in with a nice home cooked dinner, some sexy music and a bottle of wine… just leave out the cards, gifts, dinner reservations and expectations.
“Love can be bitter love can be sweet. Sometimes devotion and sometimes deceit.” ~ Joy & Pain by Maze
This year, for me, Valentine’s Day proved to be far less than perfect. First of all, I don’t have a girlfriend, so you’d think it would have been an easy non-event holiday for me, just like any other day in the week. Not so fast. By saying I’m single, doesn’t necessarily mean I’m not getting any. Such was the case this year. Last year, for approximately 9 ½ weeks late last summer, I had a girlfriend, Katherine, who lived out in Pasadena. She broke things off with me in early October, but made it clear that she still wanted to be friends. I’m not one to put much stock in the promise of friendship from a woman who is kicking me to the curb, so I let her go and got on with what was going on in my life at the time, which included moving to Orange County to get away from LA and the gunshots which far too frequently were ringing out on my block. Katherine, however, persisted with the notion that the two of us be friends. Once she learned that I was moving and where to, she began calling more and more. We got together once over the holidays and our “just friends” status was upgraded to “friends with benefits.”
Considering my circumstances; single, car-less, living in OC, I was thrilled to be getting some. I’m definitely not the most dateable guy in OC. I know all too well that getting laid every so often goes along way towards keeping me normal(ish). Katherine and I had a long talk about what our benefits situation entailed. She made it crystal clear that we were just friends and any expectations on my part that there was anything more there were unfounded. When we got together a couple more times in January, she would always remind me, “I want to make sure we’re clear. This is just a friend’s thing.” Ok. I get it. And I’m happy to be getting a piece of it, if you know what I mean. We got together the last weekend in January, and aside from the usual friends reminder, she also threw in, for good measure that, “I never felt that spark of love for you in my heart when we were together.” When I asked what that meant, she just shrugged and said, “I dunno. I just didn’t.”
The week leading up to Valentine’s Day I got a call from Katherine. She wanted to know what was going on in my world, how things have been, and all that. She wanted to chat. I was happy to oblige. As the conversation progressed, she ambushed me with the question (which was really more of a statement), “So am I to assume you’re not going to ask me out for Valentine’s Day?” I told her she was right, I wasn’t. That didn’t go over very well. “Just because we’re not a couple in the traditional sense doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate some romance on Valentine’s Day.” I tried to go into all the reasons why I hate Valentine’s Day and refuse to celebrate it, but it was too late. I hadn’t laid the foundation in advance for this nuance of my world view, and she was having none of it. It became very clear that if I ever wanted to experience the benefits aspect of our friendship again, then I’d better get my act together and toe the line. My plans were cemented by implied consequence.
She told me she always wanted to spend a romantic night together in a hotel and thought that would be fun way to celebrate Valentine’s Day. Ok, I’m in. I went online and made reservations for the night at one of the nicer hotels in Pasadena. I told Katherine to pick a restaurant in the area for dinner since I don’t know my way around Pasadena too well, and to make a reservation. I went out and picked up a nice card (I went the cute/funny route), a box of her favorite chocolates, a nice bottle of cabernet and made her a mix cd of some of my favorite sexy soul classics. We were planning a romantic evening after all, and who knows setting the mood better than Barry White and The Isley Brothers?
The day of, I rode the train up to LA and then the Gold Line out to Pasadena. Katherine and I met up at the hotel that evening. My first clue that this Valentine’s Day was going to be about my own disappointment, rather than hers, came shortly after we got to the room. I gave Katherine her card, chocolates and sexy ass soul cd… and she had nothing for me… not even a lousy Hallmark card. I was a little miffed. Hadn’t she been the one to make a big deal out of insisting we celebrate my least favorite holiday? Hadn’t I acquiesced? Doesn’t that get me a card? Oh well, I’m not one to make a big deal of not getting a gift on what should be a non-gifting holiday anyway, so I let it go.
Katherine was starving so we made our way out to dinner to the restaurant she picked. The place was packed, so I was thankful that we had reservations, until I found out we didn’t. We walked up to the hostess and Katherine said right away that we didn’t have reservations and how long would the wait be. The hostess smiled and told us it’d be at least two hours if she could seat us at all. This was Valentine’s Day after all, sheesh! Needless to say, that wasn’t going to work. We were hungry. I hadn’t eaten since breakfast and had spent the day jockeying north on assorted modes of mass transit. I was good. I only mentioned in passing that finding the restaurant and making a reservation was her sole responsibility for the evening and she hadn’t done it. We walked around the area trying to find another place to eat, but everywhere we went it was the same story…. 1 – 2 hour wait if we could be seated at all. I was thinking IHOP and the lingonberry pancakes were in my immediate dining future when we happened past a California Pizza Kitchen. There was a massive crowd milling around the door and the hostess station, but I had spied a couple empty seats at the bar. I squeezed past the throng by the door and caught the hostess’ attention just as she finished telling someone the wait was about two hours. I asked if we could sit at the bar, and she just pointed us over and said, “Go.”
I was pretty impressed with myself. This was Valentine’s Day after all and I had just gotten us seats for dinner, at a decent place (just decent… CPK is no Mr Pizza Factory), without reservations or waiting. What’s more this was Pasadena and my powers of influence are generally limited to Los Angeles. I expected some acknowledgment and appreciation for scoring the seats, but none was offered. Instead, she flagged down the bartender and got the cocktails portion of our evening underway. After our drinks arrived, she reached over and put her hand on my arm and told me that she had packed her extra special sexy underwear for the night and that I would be seeing it later. Then she said, “Y’know, the thing about sexy underwear is that I'll only get to wear it for about fifteen minutes and then it spends the rest of the night on the floor.”
That caught my attention and got me feeling a lot better about the direction the evening was taking. I forgot all about not getting a card or a gift or that dinner reservations had not been made. I was going to be seeing the extra sexy underwear later. During dinner, the tenor of the conversation changed. She started talking about the future and how she wanted to have children. I played along mostly by keeping my mouth either shut or stuffed with food. Then she proposed the idea that if in two years we were both still single then we should have a baby together. This is the same woman who had told me a week prior that she had never felt that spark of love in her heart for me… now she’s telling me she wants to have my baby. Needless to say, I’m confused. I tried not to let it show. Truth be told, the prospect of sexy underwear in my immediate future lingering in the front of mind was probably the only thing that prevented me from totally losing my smooth.
The last thing I ever expected to be having that night with my ex with whom I shared a benefits arrangement was a discussion about having children together. She told me she thought I was smart and handsome and that we’d make an attractive, intelligent child together. I couldn’t argue with that and I didn’t though I did know for certain I didn’t want to impregnate this woman… ever. I told her I was surprised to be hearing this from her considering it was her who had kicked me to the curb a few months prior. I was really just treading water in the conversation looking for any means with which to change the subject. My out came when the check arrived. I half expected her to pick it up considering I had already paid for the hotel room and she hadn’t gotten me a gift or even bothered to make the dinner reservation, but instead she got up and headed for the restroom. I paid the bill and tried to keep my focus on the promise of sexy underwear looming in my future.
“I don’t wanna feel no clothes. I don’t wanna see no panties. And take off that brassiere, my dear. Everybody's gone. I'm taking the receiver off the phone.” ~ Love’s Serenade by Barry White
After dinner, Katherine and I took a walk around downtown Pasadena. We talked about going to a movie or to a bar for a drink, but we were both happy to be outside and neither activity materialized. Eventually we headed back to the hotel and up to our room. I opened the wine. She grabbed her bag and excused herself to the bathroom. I knew what was coming next and she didn’t disappoint when she emerged. Katherine isn’t the tallest, leggiest girl I’ve dated, but her figure just doesn’t quit. She has long legs for her relatively small size and she knows how to accent them with heels. On this night, the heels were pink platforms matching the lacey pink g-string and push-up bra combo she was wearing. She hadn’t been lying when she said she’d only get to wear these for about fifteen minutes before they’d be spending the rest of the night on the floor. She strutted her stuff around the room for a few minutes, doing her best stripper impersonation, really showing off her god-given assets before kicking off her shoes and curling up in bed next to me.
We kissed for a few minutes before she rolled over on her stomach and asked me to give her a massage. I started by rubbing her feet, which I know she loves, and then moved my way up her body, massaging her calves and legs. I was in no hurry and what I had in mind for us was going to take all night. Eventually, I climbed up on top of her and positioned my weight over her ass so I could rub her back and shoulders. It was then that I noticed she was no longer responding to my touch. I leaned in close to her cheek and I could hear her lightly snoring. She was asleep. I poked her hard with my finger to wake her dead ass up, and all I got in response was a sleepy motion like she was swatting at flies. She was out cold. Outrage doesn’t even begin to describe what I was feeling. Is indignation a better word? I had been lied to. Her snores were the proof. She was dead asleep and the sexy underwear was NOT on the floor.
I tried to be optimistic figuring she’d wake up in a few minutes. It was only 9:30, but I was just kidding myself. I sat in the cushy chair at the corner of the room and drank a couple glasses of wine. The only change in her status was that the snoring got louder. Eventually I polished off the bottle, and then I got up and took a long shower. When I came out, she had gotten herself under the covers. I checked and the sexy underwear was still not on the floor. Liar. I turned on the TV and watched Live Free or Die Hard on HBO… from beginning to end. I didn’t bother to turn the volume down. She never moved. Eventually, exhausted and outraged, I managed to drift off to sleep.
Sometime around 5:30 a.m. Katherine woke up and grabbed my cock, which of course, woke me up. Rather than apologizing for having passed out on me, she was upset that I hadn’t woken her up. By this point, she had been asleep for eight full hours. I had been asleep for maybe three. I told her I tried to wake her, but it was no use. She wasn’t convinced, but she still held onto my manhood which was awakening faster than I was. We kissed for a few minutes before she pulled me on top of her for ten minutes of what I can best describe as lame sex. This was not the all-night circus of freakiness I had envisioned. Afterwards, I went back to sleep. In the morning (the actual morning, the one where the sun is in the sky), when I woke up, I pressed her for round two and was rejected. She wasn’t in the mood anymore and had a headache. She did take me to IHOP for breakfast though. I had the lingonberry pancakes.
If I take a minute to look back through my life at all the Valentine’s Days I’ve celebrated and not celebrated, this one ranks right up there with the worst of the worst. The memory of her prancing around the room in the sexy underwear does little to temper my disappointment. Didn’t I mention earlier that Valentine’s Day is all about disappointment? Still, there is a time in my life when I can remember only good things associated with February 14th. This time is from about Kindergarten thru 4th grade. It was then that we made cards for our parents in class and decorated brown paper bags with hearts made from red and pink construction paper that we’d later attach to the backs of our chairs. All the kids in class would go around and deposit little cards pressed out of perforated paper into each and every bag at every desk along with a handful of the little sweetheart candies. “Be Mine.” “Kiss Me.” It didn’t matter whether it was a boy or girl you were giving the card to. Everyone got one from everybody. That was the rule. I wish I could remember the sentiments expressed on those little cards, but the only thing that comes to mind is the, “I Ch-Choo Choose You” made famous by the Simpsons (Lisa gave that one to Ralph Wiggum). In retrospect, it was a very socialist take on Valentine’s Day we were subjected to in the LA Unified School District, the mandated equal treatment, but there was also no disappointment. Back then, there were certainly no promises of sexy underwear spending the night on the floor being broken. Of course, that would have been gross and in violation of more cootie laws than I can possibly imagine. That kind of disappointment is for grownups and that’s what Valentine’s Day is all about.
