Tuesday, February 14, 2006

VD Day

I think it's fairly obvious to anyone who has ever read this site before that I think romantic 'love' is a sham. I have hooked up with far, far too many girls with boyfriends who they 'like, totally love, like, forever' to really consider relationships to be anything but a thinly veiled lie. Even when I'm in a relationship (and anyone who's been in one with me can verify this), I pretty much just bide my time waiting for things to get awful so I can get the hell out of there. This, I suppose, is possibly why all of my exes hate me and occaisionally send me dead possums. (By 'occaisionally' I mean 'weekly.')

So it should be equally unsuprising that I hate Valentine's day.

No, this isn't a rant about how it's invented by Hallmark or how it's 'commerical' or anything like that. All of that is silly - the reason it's commercial is that it's easy to make and sell things related to the day that are not offensive. Trust me, give America fifty years, and we'll have Veterans Day candy guns. We commercialize anything. No, Valentine's day is invented by women because women are sneaky motherfuckers.

Everything women ever do in relationships is a tacit attempt to find out if you still care. Even when they do nice shit, it's a test to see if you'll respond by being grateful or if you'll respond by asking her for a bowl of ravioli. (Note: don't do the latter after she 'does something nice' that involves sex.) So while all of the other passive-aggressive behaviors the 'fairer' sex engage in are like brushing your teeth, Valentine's day is like the yearly dentist appointment. It's the one day they can come out and openly demand to be shown that they are loved and so they can check for cavities on the ediface of your relationship and also get a free toothbrush for the guest bathroom.

And, since I care about you all soooooo much, I've taken it upon myself to give you a guide to romancing your girl on V-day.

First, do not offer to just "give her the goddamn money you'd have spent on dinner and shit" and ask her to just put out so you can get on with playing Xbox. I know it seems like the logical path to take, and when she hits you with the broad side of a machete, you'll think she's being irrational: but remember, Valentine's day is about you suffering for her and her putting on a cute dress.

So the first thing you need to do is get her presents. Many people go with flowers and chocolate. If you decide that you are going to take this route, make sure the flowers are roses, tulips or some other form of FTD approved plant. Stealing from your neighbor's garden might seem very 'Lloyd Dobbler' of you, but if she sees that the roots are still attached and when she smells them, they omit the faint aroma of pesticide, she will be upset with you. "It's the thought that counts" means "It's the amount of money you spent." So buy roses. And with the chocolates, I know, I know, she's putting on a little muffin top and you want to get her low-carb chocolate. But 9 times out of 10, she will interpret your love and affection as an insult. Go figure!

Many people with more resources tend to buy jewlery. From experience: do not get anything that lights up, opens to decode secret messages, or tells you which direction is north. Do get something with diamonds. Once, I got a girl a 'ring' (that was actually a pipe cleaner) with a piece of gravel I found outside where the stone would be on a normal ring, and I told her that it was a diamond in the rough (LIKE ME) and she started to cry and speak in some language (I don't know but I think it was Greek) about the porpoise. So don't do that. It doesn't work.

Note that you cannot win with whatever you get. Unless you buy her five islands, one of which is made entirely of chocolate, she's going to be upset. What you're going for here is the relationship equivilent of plausible deniability. Your present needs to be sufficiently expensive and sufficiently acceptable that she is guilted into sexing you later, and so that she can brag to other people. A $5000 diamond choker works.

The next part of the night is dinner. You have to take her somewhere. If you cook her some food, it had better be some seriously amazing fucking food, and not Easy Mac or something, because this classy lady is going to want to dress up, which she can't really do if you roommate is watching Magnum: PI or Becker in the background. So you have to take her somewhere that requires "reservations" (ie: $90 per person). This seems bad, but when you get there, you should LOUDLY ANNOUNCE TO EVERYONE that you "have a reservation under 'luckiest guy on earth!" and then chuckle to yourself and say, "oh, you might have it listed as 'Anderson'" and then you die a little on the inside and hte Mait're'd'e'e pretends to laugh but really he just made a mental note to slip death threats in with your specials. So you get to your table (by the bar, because you only made the reservation last night, and oh by the way, it's 5:15 because wow, that's all they had available.) and you sit down, but you notice your date is standing because she wants you to pull her chair out. So you get up, and you pull her chair out too far and she falls and slams her head on the table, but it's all good, and you eventually get situated (your date orders the 'Concussion salad' as a jab at you, so you order the 'Frigid bitch oh my god you ruined my life soup' before realizing you actually want French Onion).

Dinner passes without incident, and then you go home: and this is the 'payoff' portion of the night. So you get in the door and try to hook up, but she has a headache from the wine and feels bloated from the rich food, so instead you just go to bed and hate yourself and resent her. But you have proved that you care since you were willing to suffer for hours and hours, and she'll remember that until you sleep with the 16 year old mail clerk at your work and go on trial for statutory rape (A CRIME IN MAINE??).

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

cranked out at 10:48 PM | |