Monday, February 14, 2011

Cupid's Arrow


Oh my, looky here, it's February 14...

Again.

And what do we behold? Yet once again, there's a brazen, naked cherub flitting about, shooting candy-coated, heart-shaped arrows into lovestruck men and women the world 'round.

And once again striking fear in the hearts of singletons.

I should know. I used to be one of them.

Uh-huh. Yep. SINGLE.

But let me tell you what happened...and to do it properly, best to begin at the beginning.

....................................

Valentine's Day for me has always been the Hallmark holiday to hate.

For those in love...Great! Fab! Excellent!

But don't you love-smitten pups get 365 perfectly good days to demonstrate your affection? Why pick just one?

Ahhh, because you forget and need a reminder? Because you're lazy and need a bit of a nudge? Because you're cynical and can't be bothered to wash, rinse and repeat more than once a year? Yes, now we're getting to the bottom of it.

But what about us, your single, unpartnered friends? Why must we suffer!

Whether by choice or by circumstance, we're out there facing this great big world on our own.

And whether that means cocktails out with the girls, footie down at the local with the lads or nights home on the settee with our designer puggles, we don't need your pink, fizzy love erupting all over us every February like a build-your-own-volcano kit gone very wrong.

We need you to remember what it was like not to have Jane's tights drying over the shower rail and John's tighty whiteys strewn across the bedroom floor.

We need you to remember what it was like not to share mortgage payments on your first fixer-upper, end of terrace Victorian in up-and-coming East London.

We need you to remember what it was like when begging off a house party at your college roommates' new Williamsburg duplex was as unthinkable as spending a Saturday building flatpack furniture from Ikea.

Heck, let's cut to the chase, we need you remember what it was like to pick up the darn phone and answer our calls to come out for cocktails or footie or walking the puggle!

And I haven't even gotten to the best of the worst...all the horrors of Valentine's Days past. Too many to recall, but there's one that lives long in the annals of BFs gone to rest.

It's the one where the guy I was seeing at the time completely and utterly freaked out after we'd shared a particularly intimate moment, broke things off immediately and forced me to walk home (alone!) in the middle of a snow blizzard. Yep. On Valentine's Day. And trust me, you can't make this stuff up. Were the hedgehogs he kept as pets a tip off? As in his inability to connect with warm, fluffy, approachable creatures like cats, dogs and girlfriends?

So when did things turn around?

Ahhh, well that's a long story. Involving time, toil and quite a few sessions on the therapist's couch. Thanks Joe!

But as a result, I can happily report that this year...I'm as loved up as I can stand.

So at 5:30 this morning, after a lovely homemade breakfast of fried eggs, cumberland sausage, kiwi and bananas, my eyes grew very wide when, from the hidden depths of his workbag, my beloved produced an over-sized, overly red, and all-round over-the-top greeting card, making me promise not to open it until he left for work.

So off he went, then it was back to bed for me. And now, at a much more reasonable 10:00am, I'm sitting with a cup and his card and having read his words of love and commitment, I'm thinking, hey, maybe that Cupid guy ain't so bad after all.