Valentine's Day

[jkmuller]

Valentines Day is a special time for couples and lovers to acknowledge and enjoy each other. It is also, unfortunately, more and more becoming a day when people feel compelled to buy something material for their significant other (or others) to show their love. Some people have become disenchanted with the whole idea of Valentines Day due to this very fact.

So, how do those of us that don't want to (or can't) afford something material for their significant other still manage to do something special? What will you be doing this Valentines Day?

Here are a few of my ideas:

• Writing a nice long letter
• Give your partner a long massage
• Being your partner's "slave for the day" (credit due to Steve for this one)

[Angela]

My Valentine's Day gift to Danger Man is that I told him I'd prefer it if he doesn't do/give/celebrate anything to do with Valentine's Day. Take all the stress and expectation off both of us.

We are going to go see a romantic movie that opens that day called Words and Lyrics. That was HIS idea!

[Steve Pavlina]

Last Valentine's Day I wrote Erin an original poem. I think I even used iambic pentameter.

[Erin Pavlina]

It was heartfelt and beautiful too. I treasure it.

Coupons! When we didn't have a lot of money we would make coupons for each other. 20 minute massage. I'll do your laundry. Romantic walk on the beach. You pick the next movie. Etc.

[The David]

Originally Posted by Erin Pavlina

It was heartfelt and beautiful too. I treasure it.

Coupons! When we didn't have a lot of money we would make coupons for each other. 20 minute massage. I'll do your laundry. Romantic walk on the beach. You pick the next movie. Etc.

I thought my family was the only one that did that.

[Dave Kaminski]

Originally Posted by Erin Pavlina

It was heartfelt and beautiful too. I treasure it.

Coupons! When we didn't have a lot of money we would make coupons for each other. 20 minute massage. I'll do your laundry. Romantic walk on the beach. You pick the next movie. Etc.

Love this idea. Will combine it with the sweet little things i've gotten so far. Any more good ones?!

[Shaden]

Roses are completely boring and won't get you to a girl's heart. Now hand-baked cookies on the other hand - that's a completely different story altogether. Shows your sensitive and thoughtful - although theres always the chance she'll imagine your insinuating shes fat and take offence of course

[ElizaJ]

I love roses and would love to get roses for Valentine's or anything else for that matter. I think Valentine's Day was invented by a female to remind men that they need to show their women how special they are.

[Angela]

Last night Danger Man said, "let's do something special to celebrate Valentine's Day and our anniversary" (which is a few days later) and he suggested a couple ideas: massage, dinner at a restaurant we've been avoiding cuz it's expensive, and that chick flick I mentioned earlier.

This was after I told him we didn't have to yield our souls to this money-grubbing corporate holiday.

Just him saying he wanted to celebrate the days with me made all melty and squooochy. I sure love that Danger Man.

[Shuchetana]

Aww Angela... Congrats on being with such a great guy.

I hate Valentine's Day, I even have a post about it. I think it's too commercialized and sappy. I think non-traditional flowers are lovely. Maybe popcorn and a movie could be nice and laidback?

[kyokushin]

"Valentine’s Day can bring a couple to make-or-break status"

Horrible Valentine´s Day. Never really cared about Valentine´s Day, but well, you have a girlfriend, you should do something. I mean, I don´t care about any holidays, be it Christmas or New Year´s Eve, a reason to celebrate something and most people seem to love these days. Not me. I´d like to see these days as ordinary days. I don´t want to feel under pressure because people expect everybody to act a certain way on a certain day.

As mentioned before in another thread, I´m not very social or outgoing, I prefer to be on my own reading a book or watching a film. My girlfriend thinks that it´s rather strange that I never seem to care about these things. I´m absolutely unromantic, that´s what she told me several times. But she likes me and it would be nice if I could try to be a little romantic every now and then. Well, I´m not really sure what that means. I never had a girlfriend before and I never try to act as if I´m someone else, I don´t pretend to be cool, romantic, funny or whatever. I am who I am. Sometimes she tells me that I´ve been cool or funny. Why? I don´t have a clue.

What am I supposed to do on Valentine´s Day? I don´t know. I never cared about Valentine´s Day. She has to work today (full-time), so we can´t really do anything today. So I told her that I would meet during lunch-break. I decided not do anything at all. Just meet her, go to a cafe and enjoy our time together before she has to leave for work.
The problems came before we even met. Why´s she supposed to walk to me? I could´ve come to her (or picked her up after work). Honestly, i didn´t even think about that. I might have been insensible, she had to work and felt tired and the least thing she wanted to do was walking around looking for me. It was raining and she wanted to know why I expected her to walk around looking for me? No answer, I just didn´t think about it. Neither did I have any plans to do something. I suggested to go to a cafe, but she complained that the cafe is not very comfortable. She needs a comfortable place to rest, to recharge her batteries. She complained that I´m always like that, I never know what to do.
That´s true. In the sense that I don´t think about these things. I would go to any restaurant and any cafe as long as it´s not too expensive. I suggested another cafe and she told me that she´s hungry, she wants to eat something. Half an hour had passed and time is important to her. I can´t understand this because I don´t have a job (not fulltime at least). This went on for awhile and we were just walking around aimlessly with her complaining about me. Finally she suggested a restaurant. A nice restaurant, we´ve been there before. Unfortunately, the comfortable seats weren´s available anymore. She told me that I don´t understand her and started to cry, went to the restroom and stayed there for ten minutes. When she came back she told me that she´s leaving. And she did just that.

I don´t know what to do, we never really had a fight before. This was the first time that we had a serious argument (we had a similar situation last christmas, she expected me to do something special, I didn´t want to to anything extraordinary and she told me that she felt disappointed about me and I´m unromantic,... but it turned out to be a memorable day and we had lot of fun despite all that, today was different). I thought about going to her workplace to talk to her, but didn´t know what to say. Well, she will leave in about five hours, time to analyze the situation.

Well, I don´t exactly know what I wanted to say. Just feeling a little confused. That´s it for now.

[Shaden]

Erin and I are celebrating Valentine's day by taking the rest of the day off and going to the new Qua spa at Caesar's Palace... where we'll get massages, soak in hot tubs, drink organic teas, and basically relax until we're reduced to puddles.

The dangers of too much relaxation! Thanks Steve I'll make sure to keep myself stressed out from now on.

[gberardi]

Originally Posted by kyokushin

Well, I don´t exactly know what I wanted to say. Just feeling a little confused. That´s it for now.

I've been there. Actually, as I have been thinking about it, I am probably about to be there again. B-)

I told my girlfriend that I didn't make any large plans for Valentine's Day. Since I am on a vegan diet, we can't exactly go out for steak like we always did. As of a few days ago, I made reservations at this vegetarian/vegan restaurant called Blind Faith that someone suggested ("I'm a meat eater, and I was surprised at how much I loved it!").

But that's it as far as celebrating today is. No card, no flowers, no candy, no jewelry, no plans.

And frankly, I'm disappointed in myself.

I care about her, but I clearly haven't been thinking about her.

In the past, we have had a few fights in which she claimed that it doesn't feel like I care about her. This past Christmas was kind of amusing in that I did such a good job of keeping her present a secret that she thought I was waiting until the last minute to get it. I didn't know why she was getting so upset with me that day, complaining that Christmas was only a few days away and that I needed to go get something for my sister. When it finally came out that she was worried that I was waiting until the last minute to get HER something because I clearly hadn't thought about her at all, I kind of laughed and said, "So, wait. Because I am doing such a good job NOT telling you that I am going to surprise you with a present, I'm in trouble?"

In the end, your girlfriend is probably upset because you aren't doing a good job of showing her that you care. She isn't expecting flowers or candy or anything specific. She is expecting you to show her that you care, that you thought about her enough to decide to do something for her.

So hopefully I can do enough in a few hours to head off another fight AND show her that I love her. B-)

Granted, no one wants to care about Valentine's Day or other holidays. It's just tough when all of your other co-workers who have significant others that are nowhere near as good as yours are getting flowers and candy and gifts while you get nothing but questions like, "What? Did you two have a fight?"

[Mark Lapierre]

Originally Posted by Erin Pavlina

Coupons! When we didn't have a lot of money we would make coupons for each other. 20 minute massage. I'll do your laundry. Romantic walk on the beach. You pick the next movie. Etc.

Ha! I knew I couldn't have been the only one to think of that. Mind you most of mine did include things which would cost money. But the (semi-)priceless ones which haven't already been listed (at least the ones I can remember at the moment) were:

• A long, hot, sensual bath.
• Cook your favourite dinner.
• Do your share of the chores for a week.
• Read to you.
• Take you for a drive to a destination of your choice.

No partner for me this year, so no Valentines day celebrations, but this is what I did last year: I wrote the list on individual square bits of good quality coloured paper, folded them into origami hearts, cranes and other animals and shapes, and placed them all over her room. And wrote a poem on a handmade card (with a heart inside) hinting at hidden messages carried by the new inhabitants of her room.