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."
hee hee. I love coffee jokes.
Oops. goft = gift.
No preblom.
Thanks. :-) I used it a lot when I taught ballroom dancing - people would come in, wanting to learn the flashy stuff before they could actually dance and knew the fundamentals.
thinks!
Agreed. I would not continue in a relationship with somebody who clearly valued material things like that more than concern for each other.
What was the commercial for?
I just thank God I'm married so I don't have to go through that sh!t anymore.
It's one of my favorite movies.
Taking your time is good in many ways for lots of things.
But in the movie, they knew each other for 12 years before he decided he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. My marriages don't even last that long.
Yikes. Good move.
I read Joshua Harris' book "Boy Meets Girl" and liked a lot of his ideas.
I now am against casual dating just to date. For me personally, I try to become friends first, and if there is something there, then I will pursue a type of courtship that is like dating except without all getting all clingy to eachother too early.
It definitely is a lot better than putting all this money down the drain on dating that turns into nothing.
The good thing about being friends first is that you get to see who they really are, when they're not trying to impress you. I am also convinced that any lasting relationship MUST have friendship at its base. That's where the respect, mutual admiration, and eventually love and awe come in.
(Which is why I would never, ever date, or God forbid, marry a leftist.)
You made them bake you a cake before you taught them how to dance?
That's strange. LOL
I love the old standards and the big bands. Several times when dancing with one lady friend in particular, people have come to us to tell us how well we dance together.
I'm not sure if it's there way of saying that they didn't think a fat white man could dance or if they just wanted to get a closer look at that beautiful lady. ;-)
I'm an okay dancer but I would love to take lessons and get really good. I've just never taken the time.
I happen to agree with that theory. The popular notion of 'dating' as done by most people merely serves to exacerbate the anxieties and heartaches. They date the wrong people for the wrong reason and wonder why they end up miserable. It's even worse when they marry the wrong one for the wrong reason. Yet it happens every day.
KJ, am I 4 for 4? LOL
You bet! It shows commitment. Or maybe that I should be committed. I forget.
I love the old standards and the big bands. .... I'm not sure if it's there way of saying that they didn't think a fat white man could dance or if they just wanted to get a closer look at that beautiful lady. ;-)
ROFL! I love the big bands, too, and a good mambo ... well! As for you ... I think they were jealous! :-)
I'm an okay dancer but I would love to take lessons and get really good. I've just never taken the time.
It's pretty easy and doesn't take that long. Once you're motivated, you can learn much more quickly than someone who's been dragged in by their ear. Also, if you have a well-run school nearby, it's just fun!
You bet! It shows commitment. Or maybe that I should be committed. I forget.
I love the old standards and the big bands. .... I'm not sure if it's there way of saying that they didn't think a fat white man could dance or if they just wanted to get a closer look at that beautiful lady. ;-)
ROFL! I love the big bands, too, and a good mambo ... well! As for you ... I think they were jealous! :-)
I'm an okay dancer but I would love to take lessons and get really good. I've just never taken the time.
It's pretty easy and doesn't take that long. Once you're motivated, you can learn much more quickly than someone who's been dragged in by their ear. Also, if you have a well-run school nearby, it's just fun!
Oops. Don't know how that happened!
Why Mr. Badray, I would say that yes, you are 4 for 4 [for now].
LOL
Committment. Committed. It's all the same
I went to a dance hall one night a few years ago rather to a bar, just for something different.
I had to be 20 years younger than the women there and everyone of them came up to me to dance with them. I didn't dance with any of them. It would have been like dancing with my mother. I told them that I just came to listen to the big band music, but couldn't dance at all. Then they wanted to teach me. I don't think that's all they wanted to teach me, though.
Okay, I'm past the pressure and getting cocky now. LOL
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