V-D

Thankfully it's on a Wednesday; how can it possibly be that big of a deal? Oh, but it is, it is. No matter how I attempt to not fall for the Hallmark rigamarole, it's inevitable I spend the month leading up to Valentine's Day in pure dread. Damn you, Victorians!

If I hadn't had so many failed attempts at dating perhaps I wouldn't be so sensitive. (Then again, unless it ends in marriage all relationships are arguably failures eventually. Let's not even discuss the divorce rate.) As I hear my friends' excitingly romantic plans for The Big Day, I grow envious. It's not that I don't want them to be happy, it's that I want the same for myself. I want my boyfriend to take me to a posh hotel for chocolate and martinis with friends, then whisk me off to a hotel room, which he's stocked with my favorite flowers, champagne, drawn a bubble bath, and has arranged with my roommates to pack a bag of clothes and necessities for work the next day. That's what one of my friends did last Valentine's Day. I sat at home and watched a sci-fi movie.
Most of my Valentine's Days haven't been too shabby: I usually arrange an evening with single friends and those whose significant others are long distance. My freshman year of college I threw a big party in my dorm for all of my friends, complete with gift exchange; in London, I decorated our flat's living room with hearts and anti-Valentine's I'd printed off this website. Americans and English alike: we devoured pastries from the local pâtisserie and played drinking games. My one conceit was buying myself perfume from a friend who managed the Notting Hill Agent Provocateur. Walking home, I imagined everyone thinking I had something far more exotic inside my bag. Nope.

Far and away, my favorite Valentine's Day was in 2005. My friends Marissa and Michelle and I were taking the train from Hungary to Slovenia, so we spent most of the day staring out the window at the bucolic Croatian countryside. Lulled to sleep in our private cabin, I would wake up for the cute passport inspectors and snap a few photos, then flip through our guidebooks while snacking on mysterious junk food we'd bought that morning in Budapest. Our only nod to Valentine's Day was wearing pink and red, although that evening we glimpsed a few Slovenian teenagers strolling hand-in-hand near the Ljubljanica River. We couldn't tell if this was in celebration of our American holiday, or merely because Ljubljana is an inherently romantic city.

You'd hold hands here, too.

Of course I was still hung up on some guy at the time, which normally occurs during Valentine season. (Let's be honest: when am I not hung up on some guy?) Only twice I've been dating people on the day itself. Sophomore year of college I was surprised to receive a box of chocolates at my dorm's front desk from a very cute guy I'd been on a few dates with. Of course, a week later he broke things off, and months after that started dating his friend -- but hey, I got expensive chocolates and his new love, Jeff, did not. Senior year of college my two roommates and I all had boyfriends, but for some reason the three of us were at home at the start of the night. We made raspberry hot chocolate, being all classy by microwaving milk instead of using hot water. Later that night the roommate and I who shared skim milk discovered our distraught stomach gurglings were due to the milk having expired; our roommate who drank whole milk was gleeful, having spent the prior semester trying to convert us to drinking something that has the consitency of partially diluted heavy whipping cream.

So the one and only time I got chocolates from a guy I ended up gaying him; the one and only time I had a boyfriend I got sick. Is the universe telling me I'm meant to be perpetually single? Only last week my brother was teasing me about the French physisict I'd been dating. "So you got up to two months before it fizzled out?" he asked. "Is that your longest relationship in the past three-and-a-half years?" Why yes, yes it is, thank you for pointing that out. Embarrassing, it is. And annoying, like when a new guy friend recently told me I don't come off as the 'type' to have a boyfriend. So do I come off as the 'type' to own lots of cats and talk to my plants? My only saving grace is that I'm allergic to cats; instead, I shall die alone and be found "three weeks later half-eaten by an Alsatian", a la Bridget Jones.
Hyperbole is the name of the game, of course, and I don't actual mean half of what I just wrote. I'm usually not conscious of just how long it is I've been single; when I hang out with friends they're usually not all couples, so it's not rubbed in my face. Still, being single on Valentine's Day reinforces my utter and abject failure to get anyone interested in me longer than two months, which is never a happy thought. I imagine myself laying in bed, drinking a bottle of Riesling and eating raw cookie dough while listening to the Magnetic Fields' 69 Love Songs my friend gave me for Christmas. (Gee, thanks, Seamus.) By the third and final album I'll be silently crying as I relive every failed date I've ever been on.

Actually, I won't. I'll be too busy enjoying myself with my single friends, 26 who are as single as myself (not that I just counted). That is, if they don't all run out and get significant others in the next month. C'mon guys, don't leave me!