Picture it: Newark, Delaware. Valentine’s Day 1995. I lived with two girls who were both in fairly new relationships. I was single. One of my college roommates made a super romantic gourmet picnic for her boyfriend complete with a photo album documenting the blissfully wonderful first five months of their relationship. My other roommate received a dozen roses and was taken out to a really nice restaurant in town. I went to do my laundry. I was feeling a little pathetic that day until I met a girl who was also doing laundry and was sobbing uncontrollably in the laundry room because her military boyfriend was in Asia and they were separated for their first Valentine’s Day. Well, I comforted myself; at least I wasn’t doing laundry AND crying.
Though I haven’t been single on Valentine’s Day for over 12 years, I still don’t like a holiday that celebrates those that have someone to love and makes those that don’t feel like crap. Oh sure, they make greeting cards for parents to give to their children or great aunts to give to their nieces and nephews. Children hand out those cute little rectangular cards to their classmates featuring whatever pop culture character of the moment is in each year or share boxes filled with chalky (but in my opinion still tasty) Necco candy hearts. But when you get right down to it, anyone over the age of 12 knows that the holiday is really about celebrating romantic love. And if you don’t have someone to share it with, it’s easy to feel a little dejected.
Back in the mid-90s, I was a huge fan of the alternative group Voice of the Beehive. Their album Honey Lingers was on constant rotation in my cd player and contained sardonic songs named I’m Shooting Cupid and Little Gods (Sample lyric: “Little girls, shouldn’t treat, little boys they happen to meet like little gods”). Another one of my favorite songs of theirs was Monsters and Angels which begins with the words “I’m nobody’s wife and I’m nobody’s baby I like it that way but then again….maybe.”
That album summed up my feelings at the time. Many of the people I knew were doing a lot more crying in their relationships than smiling. I worked at a restaurant the previous summer which I jokingly referred to as Nights of Our Lives as the very social, young employees would all go out and party until all hours (myself included) and cheat on their girlfriends/boyfriends with each other (myself NOT included). Someone’s heart was always getting broken. I knew I didn’t want THAT but I did want the good stuff. Where was my version of Jake Ryan kissing me while sitting criss-cross applesauce over a birthday cake when he realized that I was the one for him? Where was my Lloyd Dobbler holding up a boom box playing In Your Eyes because he couldn't live without me? Instead I had the bartender that I had a crush on drunkenly inform me that he pretended to be in love with his girlfriend but wasn’t and stayed with her because “he was afraid of change.” After pouring his hopes and dreams out to me all summer and flirting like a banshee did he break up with his girlfriend and run into my arms telling me I completed him a la Jerry McGuire? No. He stayed with her for two more years while allegedly cheating on her the whole time with various random women.
It wasn’t until I met my husband that I realized that love and romance are about a lot more than flowers, candy, sex and cheesy movie lines. For me, it’s about being with someone who always wants the best for me, thinks I’m cute even when I’m wearing sweatpants and have cheerios stuck to my arm, and someone who will stand by my side during life’s peaks and valleys.
For those of you who are still single, I share with you these words of wisdom from a greeting card someone gave me back in the mid-90s and I used to hang on my wall:
I think that I shall never see, a guy who’s perfect just for me!
A man who’s bright and doesn’t bore me,
Who has the good taste to adore me.
One who’ll make my insides tingle, who is (dare I hope it?) single,
And who, if our lips should lock, can send my hormones into shock!
A man whose passion doesn’t wane, when he finds out I’ve got a brain
Yet one who’ll flatter charm and flirt
(A lot of money couldn’t hurt!).
So if you see my Mr. Right, feel free to call me day or night!
And if he doesn’t come along -- I’ll consider Mr. Wrong!
And this Valentine’s Day, just be happy that you aren’t sobbing while doing your laundry.
Here, here - I love this post.
ReplyDeleteI remember my first job in an office setting and all of the forced oohing and aahing that occurred over the arrival of flowers all day long. It was crap. And like what you describe, those relationships never lasted.
I love your blog! You have a great voice. I will be following!