Valentine's Day

Only a society with too much time and money on its hands could coin a phrase like "Hallmark Holiday". The hard working men and women that settled this country could not have fathomed a holiday created by a company that makes greeting cards.

Here's the scenario. Three hundred years ago some guy is working his plot of land in present-day Pennsylvania. He works a 14 hour day tilling his land, tending to a herd, always on the verge of either starving, sweating or freezing to death, depending on the season. As an added bonus, he always has one eye looking over his shoulder for a opportunistic bear or mountain lion that might ambush and eat him. Imagine now, if you can, how high on this guys priority list it would be to pick a dozen roses and a card for his girlfriend on February 14th. It's just preposterous.

Obviously the world has changed. Most days I sit in an office at a computer. The biggest hazard I face at work is getting burned by my morning espresso. If I spotted a mountain lion crouched down in a shadow in the copy room, I'd die of a heart attack long before the cat had a chance to blink, much less pounce. But just because we have more free time does that mean we should fill it will nonsense like Hallmark Holidays, and the ridiculous commitments that go along with them?

The problem is that Valentine's Day is "amatuer night" at every restaurant, ask anyone in the service industry if you don't believe me. Also, all the restaurants have "special menus" on the 14th because they know they have you, and they are going to gouge you for every cent they can. Amatuer night means that people who don't normally go out to dinner do because their significant others expect them to. But most of these people don't know how to tip, so everyone working is pissed off because they know they are working very hard for shitty pay. Consequently, the service also sucks on Valentine's Day (and also on New Year's Eve, the biggest amatuer night of the year).

Below are a few highlights of my past Valentine's Days.

My first year out of college I was finally making a decent wage and decided to take my then-girlfriend out for a nice dinner. I picked the nicest restaurant at home and booked a reservation a month in advance. We had a great time, and the dinner was, by far, the most expensive I had ever paid for up to that point in my life. The service was poor, and the prix-fixed meal was mediocre. That night we had great sex, and I gave myself a hearty pat on the back, thinking I had done well in both planning and execution. The problem came twelve months later when I tried to downgrade to a less expensive restaurant. We had been dating for well over a year by then, and I didn't see a need to drop $250-300 on dinner again. I suppose you could say that was a rookie mistake, going too fancy too early, but the problem is there is just so low you can set the bar at at first. I mean, you can't go to McDonalds that first year, there is a minimum expectation, and let's not forget you are trying to get laid.

Fast forward a few years. I was working in NYC and dating a ballerina. We started dating in March, so we had been dating for nearly a year when our first Valentine's Day arrived. Naturally I assumed she would pick a nice place to eat, and maybe grab a few drinks after. We talked a little about what we were going to do on Valentine's Day, but I essentially left the planning up to her because I was very busy at work. This was a huge mistake. Ms. Ballerina selected the Blue Water Grill in Union Square for dinner (fairly pricey), followed by some crazy ballet that I didn't understand at all (tickets were $150 each). The icing on the cake came on the car ride home when we went not to her apartment, but instead to a swanky hotel in Tribeca ($700). Naturally, I paid for everything. I think the bill for the whole night was around $1600. OK, shame on me for letting it get out of hand. Any other night of the year we could have had dinner and a helicopter ride around the city for the same amount of money, I don't see the point, do you?

Two years ago my company planned a conference on Feb. 14th in Orlando. I thought it was hysterical, but many of the married guys in my groups had a lot of explaining and fast talking to do. I had three trips in a row that month, so I was gone for 15 days in February. I was kind of dating this girl, so I invited her to meet me in Orlando for a weekend between two of my conferences. She flew in Thursday night, and I had to work Friday, so I bought her a day at the spa at the Portofino Hotel at Universal Studios. I thought I was in good shape until I hit traffic driving from Tampa to Orlando and was two hours late picking her up at the airport. To make matters worse my cell phone had died and I didn't have a car charger, so she just sat at the airport unable to reach me, and thought I had ditched her. When I finally showed up she was sitting on her (gigantic) suitcase crying her eyes out. Basically, she never forgave me for that, and there was serious tension the rest of the trip. I felt badly, so anything she asked me to do I gave into. The most humiliating moment of the trip was when she forced me to dress up like a Viking and take a picture with a huge wooden troll sculpture in Epcot.

Similarly, about 5 years ago I was involved in a charity group that had foolishly planned a black-tie dinner on Valentine's Day. The problem was the dinner was to honor college football players, and the tickets were $250 a head. It was basically a night for guys to go out, get drunk, and talk about football. There was no way I was going to spend $250 on a ticket for this crazy Italian girl I was dating to come, she didn't know anything about football. To further confuse matters I had recently met this girl Camille, who was going to be at the function through her office, so I didn't want Italian girl to be anywhere near Camille. The compromise was that I rented a hotel room near the dinner, had drinks early with Italy, then went to the dinner while Italy met her friends out at the bar. It seemed like I was getting the best of both worlds until I came back to the hotel room around 1am and Italy had drank herself into a stupir and put the chain on the door, effectively locking me out of the room. I ended up sleeping in my brother's hotel room until his snoring drove me out at 4am. I succeeded in banging on my hotel room door until Italy woke up enough to let me in. Moments later she threw up, a satisfactory outcome for me.


Last year was the best. I had been dating this girl Rojo for a while. I never wrote a blog about her because the relationship really wasn't that interesting. Rojo had a viscious sweet tooth, and was addicted to all things chocolate. As last year's Valentine's Day approached she asked what I had in store, and my luke-warm reaction probably hinted to her that I had very little planned. Her suggestion was an all-chocolate 8 course meal which cost $150 per person. I was speachless. For starters, I don't like chocolate and she knows it, so I'm a little taken aback that she would even suggest it. She doesn't like red meat, so I would never suggest going to a Brazilian Steak House. But the price made it even more abrasive to me. With booze and tip you're easily looking at a $400 evening...am I the only one who this doesn't make sense to? I flatly rejected, I refused to even discuss it, I simply said no. She then offered to pay, I still refused. While the money was part of the problem, it was mostly the principle. I would not give in to the Hallmark Holiday. Fuck the economy and fuck the guy who dreamed up a $300 chocolate dinner, he should be forced to eat chocolate until he died from it.

There you have it, a small taste of the fun I've experienced on Valentine's Days in the past.