Ring, ring on the Blackberry. Hold on, I have a text.
“Happy Valentines Day. Are you in love yet? Lol”
It’s from “Yakov”, my ex-boyfriend.
Ewww. Pffffffffftttttttt! Hand gesture.
I look at my sister. She looks at me. “What the heck just happened?
“Ugh! I hate Valentines Day!”
There have been years when I liked Valentines Day. Those were my childhood years, when I’d receive loving cards and chocolates from my Pop. Classmates would hand out sweet little notes.
And then there were the Valentines Days when I was in a relationship with someone special. It was wonderful to get the right thing from the right person on the right day!
I say this because there’d be Valentines Days when I’d hoped my love interest would recognize it appropriately and they didn’t; V-days when I’d receive a card from someone I wasn’interested in; days when I was dating someone I really liked and he got me something stupid for Valentines. I once dated someone once who gave me jewelry, a card, flowers, and cooked me dinner one year and the next year, gave me a half eaten box of chocolates and a monkey card.
That was the year I was dumped on Valentines Day.
I suppose the reason I am now anti-V is because of that year. That really sucked. And I’m still not over it. It was several years ago, when I was seeing a man I was crazy about. We’ll refer to him as 'Moishe'. (The names have been changed to protect the innocent … and the guilty. Not that they deserve protection.)
I’d been seeing Moishe for a couple of years. We had broken up once before, but were back together for several months. I was crazy for him, but he had not really acted himself since the reconciliation. I tried to ignore it for a while, but it was becoming more and more apparent that he was losing interest. I knew I should talk to him about it, but just couldn’t find the words or the right time to bring it up, you know? I almost really didn’t wanna hear it, but at the same time knew I had to if I was going to keep my sanity.
So, it’s Valentines Day and we were spending it together. I think he’d cooked dinner. We’d eaten, talked, watched TV and it was getting late. He seemed very distant and acted as if we were just friends the whole night. He never uttered sweet, loving words, which he had done in the past. So, I mustered up the courage to say, “You know, on Valentines Day, people usually say, ‘I love you’.”
There. I said it.
Waiting for his response...
He says, “Well, they say it if they mean it.”
“OUCHHHHHHH!” It was like he stabbed me with a butcher knife! I immediately felt ill. No, he is NOT doing this to me on Valentines Day!
By the time we were through discussing the fact that Moishe didn’t like me on Valentines Day, it was really late at night.
I drove myself home. Crying all the way in the dark.
Happy Valentines Day… to me.
