Valentine's Day

As the sign outside of our bookstore says, "Valentine's Day is coming. Consider yourself warned."

As one of my guy friends' away message has said for the past couple of days, "Valentine's Day is coming. ew."

As I say, "It's February! That means Valentine's Day! Yaaay I'm so excited!"

Although it is true I have very rarely had an official Valentine, I have always been a big fan of Valentine's Day. Although some say you should celebrate love year round, or that it is a fake Hallmark Holiday, I think it is a fun way to spice up the winter and show everyone, or anyone, that you care about them.

Last year my suitemates and I gathered a big group of guys and girls and went out to a fancy restaurant. One of the guys was maybe jokingly my valentine. Maybe it was a joke, I'm still not sure. When he gave me a card later that was quite poetic, I was sure it was for real. But when I reread the very lyrical and cryptic writing, I was pretty sure he was saying that he was not ready to be my valentine. Or something silly like that.

Two years ago I got diagnosed with mono on Valentine's Day. So technically I was home to visit my long-distance boyfriend, although smooching could not really ensue. The year before that, same boyfriend, different non-smooching circumstance: we had a choir performance on Valentine's Day.

The year before that (yes, this is going back four years ago; alllll the way back into high school!) I decided Valentine's Day was the day I was going to make a move on my English Class Crush at a basketball game as I danced at half time (he had been coming to the games every Friday). Instead, he was out and about with his real valentine, and some other guy I wasn't really interested made his move and we ended up vaguely dating for a while.

Probably in the years before that I was still in the "I'm going to wear black and act all emo and bitter about Valentine's Day" stage.

But if you bring it all the way back to elementary school, I was the girl the most excited about giving everyone valentines, even if I was nervous about giving the boys one (even though we were required to give one to everyone if we were going to give any at all!).

Valentine's Day! I love it I love it I love it. But the question is; does anyone ever seriously claim valentines? If you're not in a serious relationship, do you still ask a potential date to be a valentine?

Is this a planned but unspoken thing, as in you plan for a date on Valentine's Day?

Or is it more like a silly 7th-grade-dating thing, as in [in a nasally voice] "Will you be my Valentine?" and then never really do anything about it?

I have a friend who has an on-again-off-again (in the most dramatic and ridiculous sense of the term) boyfriend?guy-she's-dating?boy-toy?special-man-friend? who claims he totally seriously asked her to be his valentine.

I have guy friends who claim they will never even try to come close to making a move on a girl on or near Valentine's Day because the holiday has become to superstitiously bad for romance.

I have girl friends who on either end of the extreme; they cry all day on Valentine's Day because they don't have one, or they don't really notice that it is a special holiday.

D-hall Dinner Date went verrrry well last week, by the way. Much better than previous D3s. I'm thinking he could be a potential valentine! But I'm afraid to say so out loud. I just want to celebrate love - brotherly love; familial love; the potential for love - even if it is quietly by myself.

Well, if anyone wants to loudly announce it to the world with me, that's probably okay too.

LOVE! Happy Valentine's Day :)