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."
ROFL!!
Just think plainly.
I'll bet that cup of coffee every day is better than gold. That is very sweet.
Which reminds me of a joke a friend sent this morning:
WHO DOES WHAT
A man and his wife were having an argument about who
should brew the coffee each morning.
The wife said, "You should do it, because you get up
first, and then we don't have to wait as long to get our
coffee."
The husband said, "You are in charge of cooking
around here and you should do it, because that is your
job, and I can just wait for my coffee."
Wife replies, "No, you should do it, and besides, it
is in the Bible that the man should do the coffee."
Husband replies, "I can't believe that, show me."
So she fetched the Bible, and opened the New
Testament and showed him at the top of several pages,
that it indeed says..........
"HEBREWS"
Happy Valentine's Day!
The only point of decaf is making an Irish coffee late at night. :-)
Ooooh! And I found out that there's a store near my house! I swear, I will NOT go shopping there when I'm hungry!
They're fascinated by bright, shiny objects. :D
On the other hand I am impressed with small bright shiny objects that are weighted in carets.
Very nice chocolate and red, red roses help.
What's a cruffler?
I don't get the deal with diamonds. It doesn't do anything. It just sits there. Unless you find yourself in a situation where you really, desperately, need to cut glass in an emergency, a diamond is just a pencil made useless.
A diamond, dude, is a big (I hope) shiny rock that looks so goooood on the finger.
Industrial diamonds may cut glass, but finger diamonds soften hearts.
28?
I hate this day!
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
LOL!!!!
There are tons of women looking for a nice mathematician.
bump!
Join match.com and break the lonlies.
I am too afraid to but you go right ahead. let me know what it is like.
I used to like the Internet but I noticed some very unhappy aspects of internet dating. Men seem to have more success than women.
When I was very young I had my own apartment and began to share it with the man who became my first husband. I showed him a picture of the boa constrictor I was purchasing. He, fresh from Nam said, is there anything else you would like as a pet. I said that I always wanted a Siamese kitten. One was in the apartment in less than three hours, I had that cat for 18 years.
No, not at all. I come from Lancaster, PA and my ancestors were probably Mennonite.
Too bad, I always though Amish men were hot.
If you have the handle "Amishdude" people are going to think you are Amish.
A better name for you would be MathMan.
or Mathnerd if you prefer.
Another sweet guy. How did he feel about the boa constrictor?
Another sweet guy. How did he feel about the boa constrictor?
He never said. He felt that the kitten was an adequate amount of pet for two people. Eventually I lost interest in the boa constrictor. He had just returned from two years in Nam. Probably was a bit touchy around snakes.
What are the unhappy aspects for internet dating?
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