I have always hated Valentine’s Day.  In junior or senior high school they would do the Valentine’s gift thing — delivery of flowers. Popular girls would be sent roses or secret valentine gifts from admirers. As a child it didn’t matter, it was a cutsy kid thing. That was fun.  But as soon as I entered the ‘dating’ age. I hated it.

I haven’t been in a relationship very often on Valentine’s Day.   In fact, only twice have I had a ‘Boyfriend’ on Valentine’s Day, and it’s hard to believe but the last boyfriend I had on Valentine’s Day was 10 years ago.  Let me explain why since then, I’ve still hated Valentine’s Day.  The first year we were together, I was living in Montreal while he was in Vancouver.  I’d given money to a girl friend to buy my boyfriend flowers (to be delivered to the lab where he worked), and he fedex’d me chocolates. The chocolates made me laugh — they literally were a bunch of chocolate bars from the local store. But he did include a fantastic card. One that made me tear up and smile.

So why was it a disappointing Valentine’s Day?  It was a Saturday, and I was 3 hours ahead of my boyfriend. I really wanted to talk to him, so I stayed at home.  But all my friends went out to have fun and forget missing their signifcant others.    Once our call was over it was too late to meet up with my friends (and no one had cell phones in those days), so I spent the evening moping, alone, at home.  My boyfriend ended up going out with his friends, and unfortunately the phone plans in those days meant that there was no way we could have any sort of longer call than what we’d had.   So it was disappointing because it was a lonely Valentine’s Day.

The next year we both were finally in the same place and he really wanted to spend the weekend with his family. It made sense because he’d just returned from living overseas and had hardly spent any time with his family.  So he took me with him promising to take me for dinner on Valentine’s Day.  During the weekend, his parents were so happy to have us around that they made dinner plans for Valentine’s Day. When I had a chance alone with my boyfriend, I talked with him about spending a bit of time alone together that night.   He seemed resigned, but we went to “The Keg” for dinner. It was a disaster.  He wasn’t feeling great.   The gift he gave me were two cookbooks in a series I collected at the time (I think I still have them). It showed he knew me well, even if they weren’t romantic. To be honest, I don’t remember what I got him.  The next morning we went back home, and then later that day “The Keg” where we’d eaten burned to the ground. I don’t think they rebuilt it.  That was 10 years ago.  Four days later  we broke up.

Since then, it’s happened that every year on Valentine’s Day I’ve been single. Some years I’ve done something with single girl friends (Anti-Valentine’s Day), some years I’ve just ignored it.  This year one of my running friends hosted an ‘Anti-Valentine’s Day’ party. For me, it was a nice chance to hang out with different people, be in a different scene. I had a great time. There were some cool people there, and one of my friends even ‘got phone numbered’… as it were… I spent a fair amount of time chatting with a guy I’ve always thought was good looking, a friend of a friend (we’ve met before, but it’s been a few years). But he’s never asked me for my number so I’ve always assumed that he’s not interested.  But, he’s a nice guy and he’s always fun to talk to.

Sunday was a quiet day, difficult in some ways — the change in routine is not easy (because it reminds me of the loss of a close friend), especially since I was out so late that I didn’t want to go running. But later on Sunday evening I watched a movie with one of my girl friends. It was nice to hang out and watch a movie — even if it wasn’t the light feel good movie I was hoping for (fantastic movie, though, worth seeing “The Secret Life of Bees” — it’s made me think).  I’m glad this weekend is over and I hope that these next 10 years are full of new directions, new joys, perhaps a new relationship(s), and hopefully a chance to enjoy a nice and a Happy Valentine’s Day, just once. Even with all it’s awful commercialized and contrived nature.

As a random aside… The Georgia Straight published a rant about Vancouver men — I don’t disagre…