Happy Valentines Day? Let Me Count The Nays.

Valentines Day. The most romantic day on the calendar is once again upon us. 
The holiday so named after a saint who was beheaded by an emperor who forbid marriages in his kingdom. Married soldiers made bad soldiers, so claimed the emperor. So, one night after several games of wine-pong, the emperor, Claudius, stood up, burped and while scratching his royal buttocks, proclaimed all future marriages illegal and punishable by law. 
Now, the bishop of this particular kingdom, one Bishop Valentine, thought the idea and the emperor to be two croutons short of a Caesars salad and decided to marry people regardless. Putting II and II together, the emperor seized the bishop and quickly had him imprisoned for marrying people behind his back. Even while imprisoned, however, the bishop, a true believer in the affairs of the heart and to really tick the emperor off, continued to marry people even from his jailhouse. Catching a whiff of something not right, the emperor realized there was only one way to stop Bishop Valentine from performing illegal marriages; legalize pot! When that didn’t work “Screw it!” the emperor ordered, “Off with his head!” Thus, the legend and the martyrdom of Saint Bishop Valentine and the day he literally lost his head for love, Valentine’s Day, were created.

Now many centuries later, how have we come to commemorate the decapitation of an innocent man-of-the-cloth? The offering of a dozen roses? A box of chocolates? The exchanging of greeting cards?  Oh, yes. Lots and lots of greeting cards. More than any other day; save Christmas. Romantic dinners? The toasting of wine glasses filled with your favorite Merlot? Ah yes. Traditional customs all.

 I too, have customs that I partake in every year to commemorate St. Valentines Day. The first of these traditions I created to correlate the pain and agony of having to spend another pretentious Valentine’s Day alone to that of the beheading experienced by the holiday’s namesake. As I’ve done every year since my freshman year in high school, my St. Valentines Day ritual begins with the indulging of a candlelit dinner consisting of Gummy Bears and Guinness Extra Stout. First, I pick a gummy bear from the bag. Then, reaching for my pint of stout, I yell “Off with his head!” then I bite the head off the gummy bear, pop the headless candy into my mouth and chase it down with the cascading pint. 
After having gone thru the entire case of beer or the entire bag of gummy bears, which ever empties first, it’s off for an evening of walking along the beach and reflecting on the oh so many, varied and original ways I have frequently been declined by the opposite sex. Ways, mind you that as I reminisce, have left me more impressed than depressed by their diversity and creativity alone.

Judging by a history of responses, I’ve come to accept the fact that women, when asked for a date by yours truly, associate that experience with having to watch a made-for-TV movie on the Lifetime Network. They laugh, they cry and at the end, they’re left palming their chest in a state of slight stupefaction asking “You’re joking, right?” When they realize there’s no commercial break or remote control to change the channel, just me standing there waiting for an answer, they quickly recover with the ever popular and quite resourceful, “Oh, I’m sorry I’m, uh, kind of seeing someone right now.”

“Ahh, that’s okay.” I reply “I’m kind’a seeing someone too.” Hey! A therapist counts as a ‘someone’!

Then, there was that one rejection that was delivered with the bluntness of a lead pipe. “You would make the perfect boyfriend! I’m just not physically attracted to you. Will you take the trash out for me?” I even replaced the bag for her, still, no Valentines date.

Once asked by a friend what it was I look for in a woman I thought about it for a second then, in jest, said “I don’t know. A pulse?”  She offered a hug, looked up and sympathetically said, “Look, I have to be really honest with you; you may want to lower your standards.” Yeah. I’m pretty sure she was joking.

Only after announcing loud enough so that anyone within a three mile radius could hear that it was strictly on a platonic basis, a woman finally did accept my Valentine Day invitation to dinner. During the course of the dinner I offered her a very sincere compliment by telling her that she had a striking resemblance to actress Natalie Portman. She smiled, and responded by saying that I too bared a strong similarity to a popular celebrity. “Really? Who?” I asked. “Shrek!” she answered.
Check, please!

Another woman accepted my invitation for a Valentine’s dinner date, as well.  Yes, of course, she would love to go out, she smiled, and then turned around and told me she would be right back while she retrieved her day planner so we could choose an evening. That was a year ago. Haven’t heard from or seen her since. I heard she relocated to the Netherlands that same afternoon. I’m not sure. Still. How hard would it have been to call and say, “Hey, yeah, I found my day planner and looking at it I think I can squeeze you in sometime between the day pigs fly and when-all-hell-freezes-over.”

Of the many rejections I’ve reflected upon with nostalgic wit, the one’s I simply had zero tolerance for and found very little humor in were the ones that included this one very horrible, vile and dreadful word. The one word that I encourage every, and all women every where, to strike immediately from their social vocabularies and reserve it only when discussing pickles, tea or a Tim Duncan bank shot. The word: Sweet.

I’m no Nostradamus. I am not a prophet. I cannot see what tomorrow holds. However, I do know this; that if I am ever declined again with a statement that begins with, includes or is completed with the word “sweet” i.e..how “sweet” I am for asking, while being looked at like I’m a 10 year old who just offered his teacher a piece of crap, construction paper Valentine, then I’m pretty sure I will immediately breakout into a serious bout of Tourette’s Syndrome and show just how bloody sweet I can be! I’d rather she just drive a stake through my chest, set me on fire and invite her girlfriends over for a marshmallow roast while they sit around and laugh as she begins with “Oh my god! You won’t believe who asked me out today...”
That I can handle. The word “sweet” when it pertaining to me? Yeah. Just shoot me now.

Of course, all things being fair, I too have had to disappoint a woman or two by declining their request for my company. But pulling my arm back from an over-aggressive Korean hooker grabbing at your sleeve as you quickly walk by in search of a noodle house in downtown Seoul, shouldn’t really count. Neither does being woken up by one too many annoying stripper at your buddy’s bachelor party.

“Wanna lap dance?”

“Noooo. Leave me alone. I’m sleeping.”  Snore.

“SECURITY!”

No. I guess those occasions really don’t count.

Yet despite being rejected more time’s than there are calories in a box of chocolate, I continue to convince myself that being a good-hearted, hardworking fellow will allow me to stay in Cupid’s good graces and within the crosshairs of his bow. I like to believe that one Valentine’s Day I will prevail in the ways of dating. For, yea, though I have been rejected, refused and returned-to-sender in all the many ways one man can possibly be rebuffed. And yea, though I have been played more often than the South Carolina Education Lottery, I believe there is a woman out there, who will one day agree to a place and time we can meet for a friendly formal rendezvous, and she will actually show up. Even if the place is the cafeteria of a women’s detention center and the time is fifteen minutes before visiting hours are over. And when she’s released two months early for good behavior, we will celebrate with the most romantic of evenings. An evening honoring the man who lost his head so that Hallmark could see its greeting card sales quadruple for the month of February many decades, nay, several centuries later. With incense and candles burning, we will pour ourselves a pint. She and I will then commence to biting the heads off a bag full of gummy bears and chase the colorful, chewable delicacies with some dark stout and discuss how pretentiousness and artificial holidays such as Christmas, Valentine’s Day and even Easter have become. And our evening, just like every other evening thereafter, will end with the washing of pint glasses, reruns of “Family Guy” and mad, freaky, detention center fooling around.
 Happy Headless Gummy Bear and Guinness Drinking Day to all and to all a good-night!!

NOTE:  This was something I wrote for our local fish-wrap here on Folly Beach back on Valentine's Day, 2011. I have since been on more dates than I have been rejected but continue to partake in the consumption of Gummy Bears and Guinness never-the-less.