Valentine's Day -- Yuck!

VALENTINE’S DAY — YUCK

“Valentine’s Day is the worst,’ I said.  

My friend Frannie and I were sitting in a coffee shop, enjoying a cappuccino together at the end of the work day. It was Valentine’s Day, and the barista had made foam hearts on the top of our drinks.

“There is no reason why it is celebrated,” I continued, “Other than to line the pockets of stores and corporations, and make people who aren’t in a relationship feel like losers. Except for the fact that it is prime season for cinnamon hearts — which are delicious and should be a food group all their own — Valentine’s Day is a scam!”

There, I’d said it.  Frannie, looked at me in horror. Of course she did — she was in a fairly new relationship, and they were still in the “romantic stage.” Valentine’s Day was the bellwether of their new relationship.

“Blasphemy!” she said, shock registering on her face.

“Come on, Frannie, really? Blasphemy? Isn’t that a little overboard?  Even for you?”

“No! I love Valentine’s Day. It’s so … thoughtful,” she said.

I rolled my eyes. 

“Uh huh, and how do you express your thoughtfulness?”

She looked at me, thinking.

“Well, I just do things for whomever I’m dating — this year it’s Dean — things I know will make him happy. And he does the same.”

“Okay," I said, considering. "So tell me what your perfect Valentine’s Day would entail.”

“Ohh!” Her face lit up — challenge accepted. “Well, if we’ve had a ‘sleepover’ one of us — and by one of us, I mean Dean, because, after all, isn’t Valentine’s Day all about the woman? — gets the other person — me — breakfast in bed.” She paused, “Not a full breakfast, but maybe some tea, and orange juice, and toast or a bagel, and maybe a few strawberries. But the important thing is the single red rose that’s in a vase … a crystal vase, that’s on the tray” She smiled, her eyes a little unfocussed. “Then, because we’ve both taken the day off from work, we’ll go back to bed. When we get up, we’ll shower, together, and spend the morning reading the newspapers, sharing interesting little tidbits of news with each other. Then Dean will take me on a picnic.” Frannie looked over at me. “I know, it’s February, but we’ll bundle up, maybe … Or … I’ve got it — Dean will hire a chef who will come to the house and create the perfect picnic lunch for us — fresh baked bread, artisanal cheese, an outstanding bottle of wine. And we’ll sit on a blanket on the floor of the living room, eating and talking. Then after lunch we’ll spend part of the afternoon reading on the couch, or going for a walk in the park, or down by the water, or window shopping. We’ll ‘nap’ after our walk, maybe have a bath together to warm us up before we go out for a marvellous dinner. And because the marvellous dinner is at a marvellous restaurant, we’ll have to get all dressed up. While we’re dressing, Dean will surprise me with a box of the best Belgian chocolates, and a very nice bottle of Cristal champagne with two beautiful etched crystal flutes. Then when we are ready to leave for dinner, he will hire a car — not an Uber, but a town car with a liveried driver — to take us to our marvellous dinner spot, which will have at least one Michelin star. The restaurant will be dark and intimate, with a small votive candle on the table. We’ll order the chef’'s sharing menu. The food will be utterly amazing, worthy of the Michelin star. We’ll have an amazing bottle of wine with dinner, a perfect pairing that the chef will suggest. Then we’ll have a luscious digestif wine with dessert. But before we get our dessert, Dean will pull out a little blue bag with a little blue box inside. I’ll open the box and there will be a necklace, or a bracelet — something in white gold, maybe with a couple of diamonds. After we finish at the restaurant, we’ll take the car back to my place, and I’ll show Dean my appreciation for all the wonderful things he planned for the day.” Her eyes refocused and turned to me. “That, Gracie, my friend, is how Valentine’s Day should be done.”

Frannie smiled, very happy with her imagined perfect Valentine’s Day. I looked back at her with horror. While she’d been recounting what she and Dean would be doing on February the fourteenth, I’d had my phone out and was tallying the cost.

“Do you know how much your twenty-four hours of bliss is gong to cost Dean?” 

Frannie shook her head.

“Over two thousand bucks, that’s how much.”

She crossed her arms across her chest. “I’m worth it,”she said defiantly.

“Really, Frannie? Two thousand dollars? That’s a lot of money, especially for a guy you’ve only been dating for a couple of months.”

“It’s been ten weeks.”

“I rest my case — only someone who’s in a new relationship counts it in weeks.”

Frannie shrugged her shoulders. “In case you haven’t noticed, I did go to work today, so my fantasy Valentine’s day is just that — a fantasy. But a good fantasy.”  

I nodded my head in agreement. “True. You're sitting here with me, not sipping Cristal with Dean, getting ready for your marvellous dinner.”

We sat there watching people rush by on the street. A surprising number of men were carrying bouquets of flowers.

“I think that the whole 'Valentine’s Day is for lovers' is such a crock of crap,” I said, picking up my previous thread of conversation.  “And, as a society, we are super judge-y about those who are not in a relationship. And it starts at a really young age. We start giving out Valentine’s Day cards in nursery school, before we even know what it is about.”

“But it’s a way to celebrate love!” said Frannie.

“In nursery school? The only people you love are your parents. Valentine’s Day is a celebration of romantic love, unless I’m mistaken. When you consider that, then it gets real creepy, real fast.”

“When you’re a kid it’s more about friendship, and innocent fun.”

“It’s embarrassing.”

“I disagree. It’s how you tell your partner that you love them,” she said, shaking her head, stubbornness resounding in her voice.

“How? By buying mass produced cards that tell your partner — and a couple million other people who received the same card — how much you love them? Or by buying over-priced heart-shaped boxes of crap chocolate? Or by going to a restaurant that’s charging a surcharge because society tells us we must go out for dinner on Valentine’s Day — not the thirteenth or the fifteenth — it must be the fourteenth. And don’t get me started on the environmental costs of growing cut flowers so that you can get your single rose in a crystal vase.”

Frannie looked as if I’d slapped her in the face. “Why do you hate Valentine’s Day so much? Did something happen to you?”

The short answer was no, but yes. Just a couple of minor things, a long time ago. I thought back to grade school. I think it was grade three. Mrs. Rush, our teacher had each of us make big hearts out of construction paper, leaving the top open so that they could be used as mailboxes. We had to put our name on it, and all the other kids in the class were supposed to put Valentine’s Day cards into each student’s “mailbox.” Two things happened that year. One, there were thirty-one kids in the class, and I only got thirty cards. 

But, you should only have gotten thirty cards, you say, because you wouldn’t give yourself a card.

But I did. Mom had said I had to write out a card for everyone in the class, and I did, myself included (she had said everyone, after all). So, that meant that one of my classmates hadn’t given me a card. It didn’t matter that I had received thirty cards, it was the one that I didn’t get that bothered me. I ran home after school and found the list the teacher had sent home, and compared names on the list with the Valentine's Day cards I had received. I found out that Jolie McAllister hadn’t given me a card. I wasn’t really friends with her, but I had still given her a card.  

So the next day I approached her at recess. Jolie was the queen bee in our school. She was standing around with her entourage of like-minded eight-year old girls.  

“Jolie, why didn’t you give me a Valentine’s Day card?” I asked her. “I gave you one.”

I still remember the way she looked at me, like I was something she found on the bottom of her shoe. Now, you have to remember that this grade three. We were eight years old.

“Because I don’t like you.”

I was stunned and shocked.

And being a pretty naive person, I asked her, “Why?”

And she looked at me in the same way again, as if I was nothing.

“Because I don’t.” She turned, waving her hand towards her friends. “And they don’t like you either.”

I was stunned. I liked everyone, except the boys, but that was just generally speaking, based on principle. None of the girls liked the boys. We didn’t dislike them, they were just … icky. And gross. But I had never actively disliked any one particular person in my life. Now I had a throng of eight-year old girls who didn’t like me, and wouldn’t tell me why. I was perplexed and a bit sad. But I figured I’d just hang out with my best friends Cynthia and Kat, like I usually did. I went back to playing with my friends.

The second thing happened the next day. When the bell rang to start the school day, we all lined up, and went into the classroom. I was near the front of the line, so I was out of the coat room pretty quickly, and sitting at my desk. Jolie walked up to me, looked me in the eye, and tore the Valentine’s Day card I had given her in half and threw it on my desk. I was stunned. Then her little friends did exactly the same thing, one by one, until I had a pile of ripped Valentine’s Day cards piled in the middle of my desk. Mrs. Rush saw the parade passing my desk, and had seen what they had done. She rounded us all up, and sent us down to the principal's office to sort this out. The principal, Mrs. Bradshaw, finally got the reason why Jolie, et al, didn’t like me — it was because I was Kat’s friend, and Kat was poor — she handed out hand-made cards, not store-bought cards. It had nothing to do with me. It was because one of my friends didn’t have the money to buy meaningless Valentine’s Day cards.

That was really the first time I experienced the negative impact Valentine’s Day could have.  

“I just don’t like the expectations that come with Valentine’s Day,” I said to Frannie. “Love and light.” I paused, and raised my eyebrows, “and cheap candy, wilting flowers, and sickly sweet, sappy, crappy, cards.”

“That’s kinda cynical, don’t you think? St. Valentine was, after all, the patron saint of courtly love.”

“True, but he was also the patron saint of epilepsy and beekeepers. Nothing says love like epilepsy and beekeeping. And besides, February fourteenth is the day St. Valentine supposedly died. How does that say hearts, flowers, and eternal love? And he was supposedly decapitated by the Emperor Claudius the second. That's romantic.”

“Humph,” she said. “Why won’t you embrace the celebration?”

“Because it’s stupid. It’s a money grab by card companies, and candy companies, and flower growers and sellers. It’s about false declarations of love. It’s about too much pressure.”

“What’s the equivalent of ‘bah, humbug’ for Valentine’s Day?”

“I don’t know, but that’s how I feel,” I said. “But you go ahead and enjoy your day. But I hope you’re not going to be disappointed tomorrow.”

Frannie smiled. “I won’t be. My perfect Valentine’s Day is a fantasy. Dean’s going to make dinner for us after work at his place, then we’re going to watch some Netflix.  And,” she sad, looking at me, “Just so you don’t think it’s all about me, I had food delivered to Dean from his favourite restaurant for lunch. He said he loved it.”

I smiled. “That’s really nice.” I got up and placed my empty cup on the counter “Enjoy your day! I’ll just be sitting at home, alone, humbugging.” 

Frannie laughed. We hugged and went on our separate ways.

As I was walking home, I was thinking about why, exactly I did’t like Valentine’s Day. If I had to be honest, I think it’s kind of smarmy, and terribly insincere. Shouldn’t we tell our partners how we feel, every day, not just on Valentine's Day? It just rang false with me.

I remembered when I was dating this guy for maybe a month and a half before Valentine’s Day, and he got me edible panties. Eww. I got him hockey tickets — golds. He ended up going to the game without me, and I fed the undies to the rabbits that lived in my backyard — they were vegetable-based edibles and the rabbits loved them. Maybe the guy should have dated the rabbits instead of me.

I'd also had a boyfriend breakup with me the weekend before Valentine’s Day. His friend told me later that it wasn’t me, it was just that he was scared of having to live up the the Valentine’s Day hype. He should have asked me. I would have been okay with nothing.

I was still thinking about why I disliked the sickly sweet nonsense and unrealistic expectations that are Valentine’s Day, when a strange man approached me. 

“Excuse me,” he said, “You don’t know me, but would you like to go to dinner with me?”

I stopped short.

“Uh, no. I’m good. But thanks.” I took an involuntary step back.

He visibly deflated in front of me. “My girlfriend just broke up with me because I didn’t get her a ring. I did get her a bunch of flowers, but she hit me with them.”

I looked a little closer, and yes, he did seem to have a few errant petals stuck to his coat.

“I’m sorry. That seems a bit aggressive. Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Thanks.” He shook his head. “She loves Valentine’s Day, and thinks that I should pull out all the stops for her. Last year, I bought her a tennis bracelet. When she told me that this year should be the ring, I thought she was kidding. She wasn’t.” He put his hand in his pocket, and pulled out a velvet box, and opened it to show me a very lovely solitaire diamond pendant. “I hope I can get my money back for this.” He sighed, closed the box and put it back in his pocket.  

“We were supposed to go to Le Petit Chef for dinner,” he continued, shaking his head. “I had to put down a two hundred dollar deposit for the reservation because it’s so busy tonight. Now I guess I’m gonna lose that money too.”

I looked at him. He was dressed quite nicely, about six feet tall, close to my age. He wasn’t giving off a serial killer vibe. And he looked so sad.

I stuck out my hand, “I’m Grace, by the way.”

“Leo.”

We shook.

“Hey,” I said, “Why don’t we go have a coffee, and we’ll see if maybe dinner is in the cards. No promises, though, just coffee.”

“Sounds good.”

****

SAVE THE DATE:  

Event:  Grace and Leo are getting married

Date:  February 14, 2023