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."
It seems you're handling it well. I make more than my husband and he thinks it great.
OK, I think...
Oh?
Happy Valentines Day.
That's good to know -- thanks! ;D
Egads! But I have to say that I feel sorry for her being so insecure.
Thank you -- and a Happy Valentine's Day to you, too! :)
I love that she is making money, and would have no problem with her making tons more. For me, the only thing that's stressful is when I can't take home enough to help with expenses - too much of that and I don't feel like I'm doing my duty. I've actually just accepted a modest-paying night job so I can pay the bills, and have my days free to go to court and meet clients in my law practice. Now I can shrug off those break-even weeks.
It takes a special someone to choose right.
Have you given thought to applying for a gov't position? Gov't is always hiring lawyers.
Oh lord, I am in so much trouble, I left a valentine's card
and a bar of imported chocolate for my bank's assistant manager, who I just met last week, and who just happend to
mention to me that she was single.
I've been living alone too long and have now lost my mind!
I can only plead that I was overcome by maudlin sentimentality and hope for the best.
Pray for me.
I can't handle that much insecurity. She'd freak if she ever knew about the CPAC massage parlor. LOL
She's also obsessive. You don't demand a first date be on V-day unless she had worked that into her interior for years. She also asked as a response for him not calling back on the second day after they first were in contact. She's already built a palace of assumptions based on one phone and was manipulating him him into giving her something she wants.
If they do decide to date, he needs to be clear and quick about setting boundaries, or it's going to become ugly immediately.
Kill me now...
Well if she mentioned to you she was single... you maybe ok.
You are a wise man!!!
19 years as a cop and a six months as a prosecutor have given me my fill of government, for now anyway. That said, I haven't ruled out anything for the future.
19 years as a cop and then six months as a prosecutor, what happened?
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