Roses, Cards and other Valentine’s Nightmares

What is it about Valentine’s Day that annoys me so much? Is it a deeply rooted complex from my boarding school days? Bullshit. I just happen to have a low threshold for cheesiness which I believe to be the sum of romance on demand plus predictability. I shrivel at the thought of a Valentine’s card or worse even a rose. It’s not just Valentine’s Day, I feel similarly about celebrating any sort of random calendar date set by a society overeaten yet starved. Of course I make an exception for Catholic feasts and dates of cultural significant such as Halloween.

Valentine’s Day in boarding school was my idea of a nightmare. People could send each other anonymous flowers, which were delivered to our boarding houses in buckets. The atmosphere leading up to the day was ecstatic. Girls were obsessing about who might- who might not- and who definitely won’t if only he would- send a flower. When Valentine’s morning finally came everyone sat huddled in the lounge waiting to pounce on the flowers. I hated that morning. Too cool for school I sat there pretending that I couldn’t care less whether I received not a single, one, or a hundred roses. I didn’t even bother checking but sat comfortably on the deserted sofa and watched the other girl’s diving head first into the buckets anxiously looking for a flower with their name on it. Of course I cared whether or not I got a flower even though I tried to tell myself that a single rose was just pathetic, I mean who are you? It was one of those classical moments of internal contradiction. On the one hand I hated the idea of not getting a flower but even more daunting was actually receiving one and having to engage in the whole spiel. Naturally the coolest would have been to get loads of flowers and then not give a damn but that never happened. The day passed by and I tried as best I could to ignore the giggling and screeching that was going on all around me. The people who got the most flowers by the way were never the most popular but actually the biggest geeks. I suppose it was just a question of numbers. Ninety-five per cent of my school were super nerds and the remaining five per cent were sort of cool. Naturally the probability was higher for the geeks to score. Does this sound justifying?

Later I lived in cities where Valentine’s Day played no role whatsoever – Madrid and Paris. There the risk of being conned into an awkward candle-lit evening on Valentine’s Day was fairly slim. Just to be certain I always made sure to brief my boyfriends very clearly about my attitude regarding Valentine’s. I just didn’t want to be part of an ugly surprise. A surprise, just like a first kiss, can be the most breathtaking or the most horrifying experience. It can make or break a relationship.

One of my all-time favourite surprises happened one Christmas quite a few years ago. I can still savour the moist smell of fresh hay that filled our house and puzzled me. I thought it rather unusual. I also found it strange that instead of celebrating Christmas in the drawing room, as we usually would, we were to gather in the large entrance hall. I cluelessly assumed it to be just another of my mothers many changes of plans. When I came into the beautifully lit room filled with presents and a huge Christmas tree it suddenly all made sense. In the middle of the room beneath the tree standing on a patch of hay were the two reasons that caused all confusion, Trouble and Spotty two small Shetland ponies. Calmly they were nibbling away at their beds carelessly staring right back at us. I thought I was hallucinating. My excitement and joy could not have been greater.

Another year on my 14^th birthday I came into the room to find a much more irritating surprise. My mother had bought me a small moped, which was not much faster than a bicycle, but nevertheless required a driver’s licence (remember that I grew up in Germany where you need a licence to pick your nose). Just like every other year my family and friends stood circling a table filled with gifts and a cake, singing Happy Birthday. On paper this is a touching tradition but believe you me it is mortifying in action. It was bad enough walking into a room full of friends singing at me guided by my mother who was simultaneously shoving a film camera in my face, but to then have them all bare witness? No one in school actually drove a moped – it was the most uncool thing anyone could have and here I was if front of all my school friends, outed as the new moped driver.

So there you go – two examples of surprises and my views on Valentine’s Day. Step forward my idea of real romance. Romance blossoms through authenticity and therefore has to be spontaneous and can never really be planned. Romance can be slightly awkward and clumsy. A complete coincidence can be the most romantic experience ever. Sitting in a broken-down car in the middle of the forest with someone you like can be much more exciting than a bed full of roses (well that’s just scary!). Gifts are always welcome – preferably jewellery or shoes and flowers any day, any time. It’s incredibly romantic to receive a huge bunch on any given day just like that. It seems to me that offering flowers is a dying tradition, which is such a pity because it’s an easy and fairly cheap way to impress a girl. Just as a footnote here the bunch has to be beautiful, plentiful and selected by someone who knows what he is doing rather than a poisonous bunch picked up from Tesco’s. She will know the difference!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 17th, 2009 at 5:06 pm and is filed under Princess Diaries. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.