Posted on 02/12/2005 7:00:08 PM PST by NYC GOP Chick
By DAMIEN CAVE
IET GAUCHAT arrived at his new girlfriend's apartment on Valentine's Day a few years ago with box of chocolate candy and a card. Their first date had occurred only a few weeks earlier, and since he had just ended a serious relationship, Mr. Gauchat approached the holiday warily.
He figured candy was safe - a step up from the clip-on teddy bear he'd given to someone a few years back, yielding the complaint that he was "an emotional park bench." The idea was simply to keep the relationship in play, without moving it forward.
"I gave her mine first, feeling a bit sheepish," Mr. Gauchat, a 31-year-old software entrepreneur from Hoboken, recalled. "She then proceeded to pull out this nicely wrapped box, which had a blue cashmere sweater in it."
The clearly uneven rate of exchange, he said, "was an unmitigated disaster complete with tears, followed by breakup and nasty e-mails referring to my inability to 'validate her emotional needs.' "
There are probably no couples who consistently sail through Valentine's Day, each miraculously meeting and exceeding the other's expectations, neither one feeling put out or shortchanged.
But for those in the first flush of love or lust, the day casts a particularly long and ominous shadow, forcing couples to gamble on a relationship that has barely begun. Do too much, and you scare the other person away; too little and your date may be disappointed. Most people would prefer to just shut their eyes and hope it goes away, but of course it never does.
Steve Koppes, 47, a publicist and children's book author in Chicago, was so afraid of the Valentine's Day hex that he almost stopped dating altogether. Though he had spent most of 2004 alone and mildly miserable, he had a hard time facing the prospect of colossal, public romantic failure.
"I'd just rather not deal with it," he said.
Nevertheless, there is now a woman in the picture and Mr. Koppes - still unsure of what he will do - sees Valentine's Day bearing down on him like a freight train.
"You never really know what you're going to get or what's going to happen," Mr. Koppes said last week. "People get dismissed in the dating pool for the slightest provocation so if you don't hit just the right tone, you're out."
Trying to anticipate the romantic expectations of someone you don't know that well may in fact be impossible, said Barbara DeAngelis, author of "What Women Want Men to Know" (Hyperion, 2001). "People don't realize until it's too late that each of us has a secret relationship rule book based on a combination of expectation, fantasies or even television," she said. "We come into a relationship not even realizing we have it, but we enforce it immediately."
The misunderstandings, the tears, the breakups, usually revolve around a single question. Is Valentine's Day important?
For some - mostly men - the answer is a definitive no. They tend to see Feb. 14 as "a day on the calendar that vendors promote to get into their wallet," said Michael Webb, author of "The RoMANtic's Guide: Hundreds of Creative Tips for a Lifetime of Love" (Hyperion, 2000).
Others, he said - often women - "believe that what happens on Feb. 14 will be an indication of how the rest of their relationship will play out for eternity."
For the faint of heart, there's always leaving town. Mr. Gauchat's current girlfriend saw potential trouble coming and made plans to visit her family in Oregon over their first Valentine's Day together. They've been together ever since.
And of course it helps to have advance intelligence. Lucy Fowler, 29, a lawyer in Boston, said she pulled off a Valentine's Day coup a few years ago thanks to a friend who tipped her off that a new beau would be sending a dozen purple tulips. She liked him, but their first date had been only 10 days earlier; she hadn't gotten him anything because she didn't want to seem pushy or clingy.
"I freaked out because I realized that I would have to reciprocate without making it look like I was doing so only because I found out about the tulips," she said. "I wanted things not to be awkward."
So, like a prosecutor faced with a surprise witness, she put in a call to Zingerman's, a specialty food store in Ann Arbor, Mich., where the beau had attended law school. After hearing about her predicament, the saleswoman agreed to send him an e-mail message claiming that the gift was arriving late because of a software glitch.
"He loved it," Ms. Fowler said. Eventually the pair broke up, but amicably. "And to this day," she said, "he does not know that he received bread only in response to the tulips."
The clearly uneven rate of exchange, he said, "was an unmitigated disaster complete with tears, followed by breakup and nasty e-mails referring to my inability to 'validate her emotional needs.' "
Good grief. If she were a kind person, she'd be more embarrassed than he was.
There are probably no couples who consistently sail through Valentine's Day, each miraculously meeting and exceeding the other's expectations, neither one feeling put out or shortchanged.
BAH! My husband and I don't guilt ourselves into playing the Valentines game, and we don't feel short-changed either. I don't need the drama.
Happy Valentines day honey :~D
LOL
Better than him trying on wedding dresses!
Gidg, I'm a mathematician. I don't meet any women!
I'd join a monestary, but I couldn't handle the pay increase and the greater opportunities for socialization.
yeah hehe
I won't go there! I just won't go there! :D
awwww well Happy Valentines Day!! When you are meant to meet her, she will be there, no matter what you do for a living. Those things work in mysterious ways.
Actually, I saved several of them for many years, but I think I finally threw them out, lol!
Go ahead. I dare you. :-)
I've been trying to explain this to my husband for a few years now...I always manage to talk him out of buying them, but then the week after V-day his Mom gives him grief for it.
YOU shut up, or I'm revoking your Jedi license.
Did you know that there's a CafePress store that sells Beeber merchandise?
"No, I meant us going on a date, not you coming out on this date."
You may leave your tips in the hat the nice lady is passing around, please.
Ditto Incandesia
What do I need with a piece of jewelry, when I never wear the ones I have. When I do buy a piece, it's usually tiny, and silver. That way if I loose it, break it, or don't wear it, I don't have to feel bad.
>>>>I'd join a monestary, but I couldn't handle the pay increase and the greater opportunities for socialization.
Try life as a 3rd shift workin' computer operator/network tech...I feel your pain... :)
ROFL
Are you Bill O'Reilly in real life?
I'm sorry, it's just too much power to wield carelessly.
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