Valentine's Day Massacre

               Since Valentine’s Day is fast approaching, I thought I’d tell you about my favorite Valentine’s Day memory. I’m confident that this memory is the reason I tend to refer to Valentine’s Day as Halloween. I don’t call it that because I’m trying to be funny. I think it’s some sort of psychological thing where I say “Halloween” when I mean to say “Valentine’s Day.” For example, I might ask a friend, “What are you doing for Halloween—I mean Valentine’s Day?”

            On this particular Valentine’s Day, I had been dating a girl, whom I’ll call “Ann” to protect her identity from her fellow inmates, for a fairly short amount of time. By the way, don’t confuse her with the other “Ann” I’ve talked about. Ann is just the name I’m going to use for all the girls I’ve dated. All three of them. And for clarification, this Ann isn’t necessarily an inmate in a correctional institution. But she’s not necessarily not an inmate in a correctional institution, either.

            Ann and I hadn’t been dating long, but long enough that we were fairly comfortable with each other. We got along because we made each other laugh and because we had similar neuroses. We laughed at each other’s weaknesses or screw ups and neither of us took it personally when the other laughed. I liked her, but it was probably puppy love, because I was only twenty-six at the time.

Things were going well with Ann, well enough that I thought that she could be The One, and when Valentine’s Day rolled around, I decided to get her a tennis bracelet. I don’t know why I bought her a tennis bracelet and not an ice hockey bracelet, probably because tennis is a girl’s sport and Ann was a girl (she still is a girl...maybe I shouldn’t have used past tense in this case). All I know is that the jewelry store didn’t have any NASCAR bracelets or I would have gotten her one of those, for sure.

 When I arrived at her apartment on Valentine’s Day for our date, I left the bracelet in the car because I wanted to wait until after dinner to give it to her. Ann greeted me at the door and invited me in. Her face looked troubled, as though she had received bad news. Or was about to deliver bad news. Maybe she’s just constipated, I thought.

I went inside and we sat down. I asked her what was wrong, preparing myself to tell her that maybe her constipation woes would benefit from Metamucil. As it turned out, she wasn’t constipated. When I pressed her on this, she was adamant that she was having normal bowel movements, thank you very much.  

What was troubling her was that she wanted to break up.

I was stunned. “Why?” I asked, inquiringly.

“Because you’re so gorgeous that if I look at you too long, I think I might die,” she said.

“Because you’re the most amazing person I’ve ever met and I don’t feel like I deserve you,” she said.

“Because I have a terminal illness and I don’t want you to waste your time with me when there’s no future for us,” she said.

She didn’t say any of those things. Instead, she said something diplomatic about how she simply didn’t want to be in a relationship, that it wasn’t me, it was her, etc. She then said, “I bought you a present,” and handed me a wrapped box. I opened it. It was a t-shirt. It was nice. “You don’t have to keep it, if you don’t want,” she added.

                                            
            She had been as nice about it as she could, except for breaking the news to me on that particular day. I kept the present. It was small consolation for having my heart ripped out on Valentine’s Day. 

            You can be sure, though, that I didn’t give her the tennis bracelet.

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