Do you believe in Love after Valentines?

Ohh ho! Look what I did there! That title is snappy. It's almost like Cher is right here in the room with me.
Except not, because I changed the words and now I don't even know if you understand what I am alluding to...

This post is for you. Whether you are an "Ew gross Valentines is sloppy mush that I eat for breakfast!" person,
or an
"Ohh I wish I wasn't single so I could get a Valentines" person
or an
(-insert gruff male voice-) "Huh? Wha? That is for little girls and barbie dolls." person,
or even one of those rare people-who-actually-like-Valentines-all-the-time person.

Everyone has their reason. Mine were as follows (until something magical happened...)

1 - Singing Telegrams. Think pink bumble-bee outfits, an inappropriate song like 'sex bomb', and hearts drawn on your face with red lipstick.

2 - If you go to dinner with someone on Valentines, they might bring you flowers, and then you don't know where to put them during the meal, and they get all wilted and end up splattered with of spaghetti bolognese.

And that was all the reasoning I needed, until that marvelous day....


(You're thinking, oh, I can guess what comes next! Isn't this around about the same time that you fell in love?! No. Do read on.)

My flatmate... "Emmi" *(she doesn't have a stripper name, so I had to make this name up. I hope she approves)... received a secret Valentine.

The thing was, she had no idea about this, because when the Valentine was delivered, she was attending a party. Our other flatmate was at home instead. It went like this:

The flowers and chocolates got placed outside Emmi's bedroom door, the Admirer went sadly home, and the rest of the night was spent in an excited, "oh I can't wait for Emmi to come home and see her secret surprise gift! She got chocolates! And maybe she really likes that guy and maybe they are going to go out and then maybe they will get married and we will be her bridesmaids...?!"

When Emmi finally came home - still glowing from her I-Hate-Valentines-Party - she bounced merrily up the stairs to go to bed.


That was when the screaming started.

I was lucky enough to arrive home at this point, and was standing at the bottom of the stairs, bewildered and frightened.

Emmi had found the Valentine outside her bedroom door. She was deeply enraged and disgusted. Who even WAS he???!!

The Roses were limp and the card was stalker-ish with creepiness written inbetween all the lines! (there were 2 of them).

The house was in a commotion for about half an hour before the chocolates were abandoned on top of the TV because they were "guilty guilty love chocolates! I can't eat THEM!"

And the Roses sat on the table, looking up at us with sad little faces that said "We are unloved" or maybe, "we are inserted with spy-cams"?

It was all very mysterious and it turned out the Admirer was someone who's admiration was blatantly unwanted. Also he had never even talked to her face before!

She was tortured by his attention and the frightening possibility that he might expect something back, or try to pursue the 'relationship' further. (He did, later.)


What's the moral of this story, you may ask?

Am I going to paint you a picture of why I like Valentines, and why many people detest it, and what is and isn't appropriate, and how cruel women can be, and why men are incapable of romance, and what is the true meaning of Valentines, and what kind of gift you should get (not Cadbury Roses)...?


No. I'm just going to say that myself and the other flatmates really enjoyed our Valentines day that year - watching our tortured Emmi, solving the stalker mystery, and eating the Guilty Guilty Love Chocolates. All of them.