Jared W. Smith

For some, today is Valentine’s Day — the day where many couples of varying levels of happiness exchange chocolate, roses, expensive dinners and jewelry, and, $DEITY willing, end the evening with candlelight and Trammell Starks. (Okay, perhaps the Trammell Starks part doesn’t happen. But then again, you never really know.) For others — including myself — today is more along the lines of Singles’ Awareness Day. There’s nothing really wrong with that, either — I’m just kind of ignoring all the lovey-dovey stuff. I don’t like to talk much about it. As Tom behind me just said, today is a low value day — not just today, but in years past as well.

Brace yourself.

For me, Valentine’s Day has had a very checkered past. Sure, there were the early elementary school days where the mandate was that everyone bring “Valentines” — small pieces of semi-corrugated cardboard with corny sayings printed on them. This actually proved useful — this permitted people to conduct “puppy love” operations in relatively covert conditions. No one was singled out, and that was kind of a cool thing. Plus, it ensured that small weiner nerds such as myself at that time would at last feel a little love.

Then sixth grade rolled around. No longer was it mandated that people distribute Valentine(s) to each person — at this point, for a lot of people, the opposite sex was emerging as less “icky” and more “ooh la la” as per hormones. Naturally, because I was that little weiner nerd, I was pretty much shut out. That bothered me greatly.

If 6th grade was bad, 7th grade was worse — we had an assignment once to anonymously write a Valentine’s letter to someone. It would make sense to send one to the girl I was liking at the time, because sending a letter to any other girl would have likely caused serious confusion. The problem is that I have extremely distinctive handwriting, and I didn’t want this girl to know I liked her yet. Blowing my cover would have been the worst thing ever (to that point in my young life, anyway). Typing the letter would have blown my cover as well; at that point, I was one of the extremely few people to use a computer on a regular basis, and that would have just screamed “Jared”. I just couldn’t write that letter — and in fact, I was excused from the assignment. It wasn’t time for her — or anyone else, for that matter (I referred to her in code) — to know. (That time would come in a late August afternoon some two years later under the safety of a typewritten note delivered via three different people or so to mask my identity.)

Eighth grade brought about a crisis within the first 45 waking minutes. I have this thing about being pursued that just makes me incredibly uneasy…and I found roses from someone who seriously, SERIOUSLY dug me. Red ones. You know, the kind that say “Trammell Time.” I wasn’t used to the attention, and I panicked. I seriously, major-league freaked out. (I was having a conversation last night with another fellow blogger who, like me, is also terrified of being pursued. Glad to know I’m not the only one.) That was the genesis of an extremely uncomfortable three months. I learned from this experience that I really prefer starting a relationship on my own terms, when I’m ready for one, with a person of my choosing.

From that point forward, Valentine’s Day was generally kind of a non-event. I felt my annual “bleh” at all the happy couples around me (especially my senior year in high school, when EVERYONE was dating someone except for me). There were those couple years where I had a girlfriend, and I managed to botch Valentine’s Day in some special way all three of those times (i.e. almost causing an accident when driving to pick up flowers, not having time to get the card in time, etc.).

February 14 and I just don’t seem to get along. Low value, indeed. Perhaps Singles’ Awareness Day and I are much more compatible, after all.