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The Love? Popular culture portrays intimate dinners on that special Valentine's Day date. For Catherine E. Cutler, fantasy has never matched reality. File photo |
Comments (5)Valentine's Day Fantasy Meets Reality
By Catherine E. CutlerPublished: February 11, 2010
"Do You Want Fries With That?"
Back in my salad days, when I was just a little crouton, I operated under a grand delusion: Valentine’s Day would be the epitome of romance. I’d follow the dating rules, whatever those were, and whoosh, I’d go sailing off into a picturesque sunset with the love of my life. This holiday would be a magical, hallowed part of my dating life, with tasteful gifts and chocolates oozing with admittedly disgusting cherry liqueur. At candlelight suppers, deferential waiters would whisk around as Verdi arias played and couples snuggled in red leather banquettes. I’d never heard any Verdi, but I was sure he was one of the big guys, opera-wise. Banquettes sounded French and therefore romantic — unless my legs stuck to the leather and made an embarrassing sucking sound when I stood. (I’d have to wear stockings, even if they gave me hives.) My imagined Valentine’s Day always had a foggy haze around it that framed the action like a misty dream sequence in a 1950s movie. Naturally, the reality never matched my fantasy. The record from two holidays speaks for itself.
One Feb. 14 was like army boot camp, but without fatigues. My date, a wildlife biologist, had the original idea of taking me on my first overnight trip to the mountains as his valentine. I loved hiking. How different could backpacking be? I envisioned a lantern glowing as fresh trout sizzled over the fire. After we took a wrong turn, a pleasant 10-mile trail hike became an 18-mile forced march with three unplanned river crossings. In one, I inched, petrified, on my stomach across a toppled log high above a rushing river. My date, who’d scampered across like a tightrope walker, hollered tenderly at me, “You’re fine! No one ever falls!” By sundown, I was starving and felt a union break was in my contract. Daniel Boone took pity on me. We each got a few peanuts and half a granola bar, but there’d be no rest period, nosirree.
At 10 p.m., as we slogged along, he searched for one elusive meadow where he wanted to camp. I now hated him with an intense passion previously reserved for Calculus II. I just wanted to lie down somewhere, anywhere. He searched endlessly for the perfect flat spot, then suggested I pitch the tent, as practice. I happily complied, intent on sleep. I was about to crawl in when he suddenly toppled the tent. The sides had tiny ripples, he explained. Astonished, I watched him pitch it again, tighter. Had we not been in the middle of nowhere, I’d have stomped off dramatically with nary a backwards look. At daybreak, when some boy scouts trooped by singing, the sympathetic scoutmaster looked at my pleading eyes and offered to take us home with them. Hurray.
On Valentine’s Day one year later, I said yes to a blind date with “Tom,” who suggested lunch and a matinee. Boring, I thought. I had a complicated scheme for first dates. If dinner or a movie was mentioned, I’d suggest hiking instead. My misguided theory was if we couldn’t keep a lively conversation going for even one day hike and needed to hide behind menus, then we couldn’t possibly be the loves of each other’s lives. My sister commented that I’d created an absurd hiking test and foolishly was requiring men to pass it.
Tom loved the hiking idea, so off we skipped down an unmarked trail he knew, arriving at a hidden swimming hole. “Come on in,” he called, stripping off all his clothes and leaping in. I declined shyly. It was not my style to take everything off on a first date. He was disappointed. We ate our picnic “poolside” in awkward silence. Tom had turned the tables on me. He had a “skinny dipping test” akin to my hiking test. If a woman wasn’t brave enough to skinny dip on a first date, then she couldn’t possibly be the love of his life. We had flunked each other's silly dating tests — on Valentine’s Day, to boot.
After those two crazy Valentine’s Days, I cheerfully relinquished my romantic holiday fantasies. I figured out that Valentine’s Day is merely great fodder for evenings spent with friends, swapping goofball dating stories. If I ever receive a new emergency flashlight, an offer to wash the car, or a chocolate bar on Feb. 14, I am grateful.
P.S. I still love hiking, but I’ve stuck like glue to a vow I made way back when — never, ever hike on Valentine’s Day.
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