Ah, what a beautiful time of the year. The stores have finally cleared out the last of their Christmas supplies, and they've already started gearing up for the best holiday of the year. Chocolates and flower arrangements adorn everything you see and the colors of red, pink and white overwhelm the senses wherever you walk. The day I'm speaking of would be Valentines day and yes, I was speaking with a mild hint of sarcasm above when I called it the best holiday of the year. In the 23 years that I've been alive, it's always been a bit of a thorn in my side.

In junior-high, I really still didn't give a crap about Valentines day, because I was more interested in sports and things like that. All I knew was that I'd inevitably get leftover chocolates from somebody at some point. Come to think of it, those were some of my better memories of the day.

In high-school, things changed a bit for the worse. As mentioned before, I only went out on one actual date in high-school, and that was at the beginning of my senior year. During the four years of high-school, it was almost a given that you had to be going out with someone. The flower shop in town would let kids order flowers for one another and would deliver them to whomever during lunch on the lucky day. I clearly remember sitting around with a snide grin while everyone who was an item exchanged their carnations and boxes of candy or cheap jewelry. I just sat back on the wall with the rest of the "untouchables" and laughed to myself. Sure, it would have been nice to give or get a flower, but I always fooled myself into thinking that I didn't care about it when I really did.

When I went off to college, I wasn't ready to fool around in the slightest. The big day finally rolled around my freshman year and I wore a big, black heart around my neck on a black shoelace. Although I must have seemed like quite an asshole, it actually made me happy wearing that heart. While everyone was sending their cards and doing whatever they did, I walked around happy and confident in my single-ness for the first Valentine's day in my life. Instead of being made to feel guilty about being single, I was cool with it and probably actually made some people uncomfortable for going out with someone.

The next three years were a whirlwind of emotions for me on the particular day of St. Valentines. One year (in no particular order), I actually knowingly pulled the big asshole move. The person I was seeing kept hinting / telling me that they had only gotten flowers once in their life. After approximately two weeks of this cattle-prodding, I did the opposite of what they wanted, simply because I was sick of hearing about it every day. Although I did get them something cool, I was still a jerk (I admit it) for not listening to them.

Now that we've gotten my asshole-ness out of the way, we can get on to my two most exciting (and probable top reasons why I dislike) Valentines days ever. One of them took place after I had been going out with a girl for some time. She dumped me at the beginning of January, but then somehow fooled me back into thinking she actually cared again during the beginning of February. It was a supreme job of me getting the shaft (she got with one of my friends the next weekend) and it inspired my only act of getting drunk and puking. Two days before V-day, I ate a big bowl of ravioli, ate a white-chocolate candy bar, and then downed 3 or 4 big glasses of vodka and lemonade. At least my stomach was buff for the big day.

The crowning Valentines day, however, came one year when I had been going out with someone for several months. I was (stupidly) getting into the relationship quite a bit when I found out a week before V-Day that she had cheated on me with a good friend of mine about a month before. Being the sniveling wimp that I was, though, I bit the bullet, kept going out with her, and even got her something for the big day. Needless to say, there wasn't a whole lot of feeling behind it.

So that's it. Right now you're either thinking how much of an asshole I am, or how much you might agree with me. Eventually maybe I'll find myself out shopping for flowers or gifts again. Until then, I'll keep listening to my depressing music and biting my lip as anatomically incorrect hearts beam at me from every direction.

back