Valentine’s Day is fast approaching.
While I love the idea of celebrating love, I must admit that the holiday, the actual holiday, has a way of sneaking up on me. As January drags along, I know that I have weeks to get a gift and card for not only my wife, but also my sons. When February comes around, I think to myself, ‘I need to get on this soon’ and I intend to, I really do… but as anyone who has ever watched me write will attest, deadline is my muse. I know, and now you do also, that the night before I will go to a drug store and get cards then somewhere to get boots or a sweatshirt or something that says “I know what you like.”
So, with just over a week to go, I will urge readers to go now, immediately, and find something lovely for the ones you love.
I will also give some advice to anyone who may be trying to woo a young lady. A gift is not a gift, unless she has something to show her friends. I learned this the difficult way.
When my wife, Melissa, and I were dating, I took her to dinner and a concert on the weekend before her birthday. While it was a group she loved, the concert was several hours away from home and none of her friends were there. Because my wife’s birthday is the first week of November, we actually got to see the group’s regular show as well as a rehearsal for their upcoming Christmas concerts and invited the audience to stay.
We had a great time.
On her birthday, I drove to her home. I brought flowers and fancy cupcakes. We had a meal watched a movie and ate desert.
When it was time to go, she was clearly upset, to the point that even I knew something was wrong. Her reply was always, “Nothing.”
Two days later, things remained cool. I was talking with a friend and his wife, Kim. She asked me about the weekend and about the actual birthday.
After telling her, Kim looked straight at me and informed me that Melissa was mad because I hadn’t gotten her a present.
I explained that I bought her concert tickets. There was a meal. There were flowers. Even cupcakes.
Kim asked what she had to show her friends and coworkers? Confused, I explained that she could certainly tell them about the unexpected double concert.
I reminded her about the flowers and the cupcakes. Kim asked if the flowers were delivered to her dorm, or better yet, her campus job. I said I had brought them to her home, where her parents lived. Kim asked if I had bought enough cupcakes for Melissa to share with her friends. I told her that I had gotten the cupcakes at an actual bakery, one where glamorous, decadent cupcakes aren’t made, but created individually and priced accordingly.
Kim explained that flowers don’t count unless they are delivered. The more people that witness the delivery, especially the right people, the more credit the gift receives. She said I could purchase and deliver flowers, but I had to take them to her office, her dorm or better yet one of her classes.
Additionally, a gift is not a gift unless she has something to show off. If the gift grabs attention and people ask about it without her needing to comment, that’s even better.
I am not sure whether the prevalence of social media helps, because pictures from a concert or other experience can be posted, thus drawing the desired jealousy.
But social media can also hurt because instead of being compared to a relatively small number of boyfriends associated with close friends, you are now compared with the every spotlight-grabbing lothario on the world wide web.
I tell you these things as a cautionary tale. I don’t want any young man to be frozen out and not know why.
Additionally, I am urging more patience and understanding from the women in our lives. Most of us are not bumbling doofuses, but nor are we mind readers. Sometimes subtle hints don’t do the trick either.
Finally, I am asking all of you to hide a card or two somewhere at the store, that way, when I leave work next Friday, I know there is a least one or two cards left in town.
-Mac Cordell is a reporter for the Journal-Tribune.