Ah, Valentine’s Day. That amazing time once a year where we mark the vicious stoning of a Roman priest by buying stale chocolates, stiff teddy bears, and wilted flowers for that special someone.
However, as Tech students, you’re all highly unlikely to know anything about how this holiday actually works. While you’ve been locked away in your room, lamenting the lack of girls or the abundance of mouth-breathing chauvanists (as appropriate), you’ve probably been nursing thoughts of an idyllic day, spent snuggling with your significant other.
Wrong.
Thanks to my foray into the real world, I’ve seen how this holiday really works. Whereas many may picture the perfect scene of candles, wine and two star-struck lovers staring longingly at each other across dessert, I know all the different ways in which that scene can be NOT perfect.
Now folks, the first thing to remember is that we can’t all be power couples like the Petersons. While I’m sure that some will have no problem getting a table at Chateau le Fancy-Pants this Tuesday, we mere mortals have to lie, beg, steal and kidnap our way into getting a reservation. Personally, I prefer that last option. Nothing puts more passion in a relationship than pasting together a ransom note from newspaper clippings while snuggled up on the couch.
But, gentlemen, I’m afraid to tell you that if you don’t have a reservation in hand by now, I’m afraid that instead of whispering sweet nothings in a lovely lady’s ear over wine, dessert and a violin serenade at Chateau le Snoot, you’ll be attempting to seduce her over a plate of cold, hard fries at McDonalds, and that’s only if you’re willing to slip the doorman a couple of Washingtons on the way in.
But fear not! Thanks to another holiday that also happens to fall on Tuesday, you’ll have plenty of friends to join in a totally romantic activity. Thanks to all your friends celebrating the arrival of Singles’ Awareness Day, you’ll have your pick of who you want to join. Should you join the guys down the hall in their all-day Lord of the Rings marathon? Or maybe help yourself to the abundance of cheap red wine and blues music the girls in the apartment above yours are lamenting over? Or maybe join a mixed-sex group for a totally platonic dinner amongst totally non-interested friends, 100 percent free of sexual tension? The sky’s the limit.
But, should you find yourself lucky enough to have both a reservation at a restaurant that is at least slightly unlikely to give you botulism and, less important, someone to share it with, you’re not out of the woods yet. There’s still what kind of flowers to get, whether that $150 box of chocolates is really necessary, what to wear, whether to show up early, on time or fashionably late, and a thousand other little worries. It’s so stressful.
So, I propose that if students are all going to be stressed anyway, they might as well get something productive out of it. So, instead of cramming yourselves into uncomfortable clothes and waiting three hours at a restaurant, I say just spend that three hours cramming on your couch, snuggled up with your notes, wearing your ugliest set of sweats (you know, the ones you wear to class?).
And, if anyone happens to have a spare reservation lying around after that, keep me in mind, won’t you? Barack and I have a double date, and I forgot to book a table.