Current Mood: amused

This is the first Valentine’s Day in several years that I don’t have a boyfriend. It really doesn’t seem that much different though. In the past, boyfriend or not, the day has been pretty uneventful anyway.

Before I go any further let me just say this: Men, I get it. To most of you, it is silly. It’s commercialized. It’s overrated. You loathe the whole mushy lovey-dovey idea of Valentine’s Day and having to come up with and spend money on a “thoughtful gift”. And if you do it, its merely out of obligation. I get that. Nevertheless, most women love it if their man makes an effort. Getting the flowers at work makes us feel special. Letting us get dressed up and taking us to a nice dinner…well, we just like that stuff.

I have a good friend at work and this dude absolutely adores his wife. He talks about her all the time and is constantly thinking of things do for her and places to take her. He always puts a lot of thought into gifts for her. I know because he often asks my opinion before he buys stuff. And I’m here to tell you her Valentine’s Day gift is rockin! He actually picked out something for her that I’ve been wanting myself for a while. I think she’s going to love it! Honestly, I’d love to have someone who put in just half the effort he does.

Thinking back over the past few years, I’m having a hard time remembering actually being taken out anywhere for Valentine’s Day. That’s kinda pathetic, isn’t it? Not only that, but most of the gifts I’ve gotten, if anything at all, have been half-assed and thrown together at the last minute. Honestly, it’s not about the gift or the meal or the cost of it all. The thing is when there is zero thought put into these gifts, it translates to a woman that her guy just doesn’t care about her. To me, a cooked meal at home would be fabulous if there was thought put into it. Most women aren’t very superficial. We just want to know that our guy cares. We all know I have a track record of picking some real winners though.

A few years ago, I got a dancing mechanical hamster. Yes, really. It was accompanied by a SpongeBob Squarepants Valentine’s Day card. All of it was given to me in a plastic Bi-Lo bag. I actually found this little guy the other day. If you push the button on his foot, he sings “Love Machine”.

That has to be one of the worst.

One year, I had a boyfriend actually break up with me on Valentine’s Day. Nice, huh? We had been together for about a year. We ended up getting back together a few months later and stayed together until the next Valentine’s Day. A couple of days after, we split up again. I did get flowers the second year though. We laugh about it now. I tell him he just didn’t want to get me anything.

Yeah so needless to say, Valentine’s Day has been somewhat underwhelming for me throughout the years. It’s just another day to me. So humor me. What’s your best or worst Valentine’s Day gift or experience?

When I was in high school, I dated this guy named Jason for a brief time. Why I only dated him briefly, I will elaborate on. Jason had always been sweet and we got along really well. He wasn’t a great looking guy, but thought I’d hang in there and just see if it lead anywhere. His looks however had nothing to do with the abrupt end of our relationship…er… courtship … er…whatever.

I grew up in a small rural county. On Friday nights, everyone went to the high school football games and all the kids later met at the McDonald’s. When football season was over, there was nothing to do except cruise the Wal-Mart parking lot. We had no movie theatre, mall, bowling alley, or putt putt golf. There was no Applebee’s or Chili’s. We had a few fast food places and a Shoney’s.

One night after a few hours of cruising around, Jason and I decided we’d go grab a bite to eat at Long John Silver’s. The fact that he took me to a fast food restaurant on a date didn’t bother me. I didn’t expect a big fancy dinner date. We didn’t have anywhere fancy to go. We were young and that place was about as good as any. Fast food was expected. What I didn’t expect was what happened once we were there.

We walked in were looking at the big overhead menu. He seemed to have made his selection, walked right up and placed his order. He ordered a pretty big meal for himself and a large soda. I was just about to give my order when he turned to me and said, “You’d better eat cheap. I only have $3.00 left.”

Huh?! Hello?! Rude! Inconsiderate! Selfish!

Who takes someone out to eat and spends their entire cash fund on themselves?! Pfeh! Whatever!

At that point, I wouldn’t have eaten a single solitary piece of food if my life had depended on it. I ordered a water. I sat there and watched him eat his entire meal… fuming all the while. When he swallowed the last bite and asked me what I wanted to do next, I told him I had to go home. He seemed confused that I wanted to end our “wonderful evening” so soon, but reluctantly drove me home. Upon pulling into my driveway, I hopped out of the car, went inside and shut the door; leaving him there to figure it out on his own.

That was the last I saw of Jason, and good riddance! It just wasn’t worth it for me to answer his phone calls from that point on or give him an explanation. I figured if he wasn’t smart enough to figure out what went wrong, I certainly didn’t need him anyway. Besides… he really wasn’t that cute.

So I get home from work this afternoon and the lady who lives across from me comes running out of her apartment to talk to me. She introduces herself and immediately asks if I’m doing okay. I’ve never talked to her before so I’m kinda feeling strange about this and not sure what she’s talking about. “I’m great,” I tell her. She said, “Well, I know all about what went on here and wanted to let you know if you need anything to just let us know.” Still kinda taken back by it all, I look at her inquisitively and say, “Ok, thank you.” She went on to say, “I saw Steve and the guys moving that big TV out of there the other day and wanted to let you know that we have three TVs and you can have one if you need one.” I was really surprised at her generous offer, but I’ve actually had several TVs given to me lately so I’m good and thanked her again for her offer. She smiled at me and went on to say, “I know you don’t really know me, but I know a lot more about you than you do about me.” Okay, so now I’m a bit freaked out and just look at her blankly. Then she said, “Well, I should have said that I know a lot more about Steve than you know about me and if you need anything, you just let me know.”

NICE! There’s no telling what she was referring to. I didn’t ask, didn’t care and don’t want to know. HA!