Just one more, until 02/14/10

It's Monday so I got some mailllllll. This message is from my friend and yours, Mary of The Mary Report.

I resent the implication that I am well-adjusted and/or satisfied with my life (har har), but really? We just ignore all this business at my house. We don't even acknowledge the day and I like it this way. The first year we were together I was all, "I'm not into Valentine's day, and we're both broke, so let's please not do anything," and he agreed. But then he got me a gift anyway! And it was a really nice gift! But then I felt awful because I didn't get him anything! Ugh!

Anyway. I'm totally going to hit the SuperStore for cheap chocolate on Sunday. Hooray! And Sorry Mom is the best ever.


Mary’s got some good sense.

Know what I did for Valentine’s Day? I shaved my legs. My live-in brought me a Kit-Kat when he got off work, because I called him and asked him to bring me one. We made bacon and eggs, had a bath, and then went to bed at 8 p.m. with a bottle of red wine. Verdict: Best V-Day of all time.

Sidenote: What is with the whole, somebody getting you something for Valentine’s day, or whatever other holiday, after you’ve both agreed to not make a big deal about it? It’s O.K., as long as he or she is like Mary's S.O. and not expecting you to surprise them, too, I guess.

Some people have gotten into real trouble believing Valentine’s Day was not going to be an issue to find their partner was expecting some kind of jewelry commercial-esque plot twist.

Exhibit A:

i made the mistake of starting something casual with a girl in late january. we were each other’s dates to a few rock shows, we had a few “slumber-parties.” i don’t know if i thought i was having a fling, but i wasn’t thinking too hard about it. i just thought we were having fun and seeing where it would go. i didn’t want to do something too big for valentine’s in case it scared her off, because we aren’t all that mush, and really we’ve only been seeing each other a few weeks, and i wouldve felt like an insincere knob. i gave her a little spiderman valentine from my nephew’s set, dropped it in her mailbox because we hadn’t made plans to see each other and i figured she’d be busy. cute, right? i guess not! she called me all, ‘wtf is this shit?’ she wanted me to come over uninvited to ‘surprise’ her (even though that’s what she was expecting? surprise? wtf, right?), and she’s pretty pissed because of what her roommates got from their boyfriends and because she stayed home by herself while they were all out doing something. now i don’t know what kind of shape we’re in. i don’t know if she hates me, i don’t know if i’m supposed to make it up to her, i don’t even know if i want to do that because if i wasn’t sure how i felt about her before i’m def not sure now. and i wonder if we’d be in this shape if only valentines hadn’t happened a few weeks after we started seeing each other. what the hell do i do now?


A kids' Spiderman valentine? That IS pretty cute, and pretty safe, and it looks like this situation called for safe. A few weeks is rarely enough time to know well enough how you feel about someone in order to make crazy declarations. You know, an insincere knob is a dangerous thing to be. People in love with being in love are just the freaking worst. Their relationships have nothing to do with the other party. They just get off on making grand gestures for other people to see –- they’re not having fun with just the person they're with, they have to have everybody else watching -- and its too bad those grand gestures fool unwitting girls and boys into believing they’re onto the real thing with someone.

This girl may in fact watch too many movies, if she doesn’t see the danger of a person who is too lovey too fast. It’s not like you did nothing, which, even given my own relaxed attitude about the 14th, I don't recommend when you're very early into a thing with somebody, unless you make sure there's nothing expected. Because there are varying stances on this stuff, you don't know if you risk hurting somebody's feelings.

Maybe you should have talked to her instead of coming up with your own solution (though I think it was pretty good). In the same breath, what about her? What did she get you for Valentine's Day? It does kind of suck that she didn't have a good night sitting at home while her roomies went out, but she could have suggested you come over or that you do something.

Maybe things would have played out differently if you had gotten together at a different time in the year. It might be telling about her character and maturity that she’s had this reaction. Maybe it’s lucky you got Valentine’s Day out of the way early, because now you’ve seen this side of her. Like I said on Friday, Valentine’s Day doesn’t really create problems, but it can identify them. In relationships, in situations, in people.

But on Valentine's Day sometimes people put pressure on themselves and their partners, crushes, what have you, to make conclusions and statements about their romantic situations, when ordinarily these thoughts and words and actions would just come about with time. The whole thing may be fixed with some talking.

Talk to her about why what you did was right for you. Tell her you didn’t want to scare her off, and tell her you didn’t want to do something you couldn’t possibly mean yet. Listen to what she has to say. Hopefully she makes sense to you, and she appreciates your logic. If you can’t make her understand that you were just doing the most genuine thing you could, and if you decide it was just some dumb-ass cinematic encounter she was looking for, good riddance.

And that does it for V.D. 2009. Tomorrow: a non-relationship question. My range of expertise is broad.