For a long, long time, I hated Valentine's Day.
See, I was kind of awkward-looking in middle school, high school, and college (oh man, I totally gained the Freshman 15 and then the Sophomore 15...) so I was always Valentine-less on Valentine's Day. Whenever this holiday rolled around, I'd often duck into the library to study or lock myself in my room for a pity party. What fun it was!
During my senior year in college, I found myself without a boyfriend yet again---and most of my roommates found themselves single as well. Huzzah! At least we could suffer through Valentine's Day together, right?
So on that fateful Valentine's Day in 2004, we ordered a pizza and sat around in our living room to talk about 1.) how much we hated boys, and 2.) how much we hated our roommate Christina*. Christina, you see, was the CRAZIEST ROOMMATE on the planet. She was passive aggressive. She was a total martyr. And she loved playing the whole "My life is so hard because I can't get into the musical theater program" card. In short, we all wanted to strangle her.
But as fate would have it, Christina had managed to convince a boy to become her boyfriend, which meant even she had plans for Valentine's Day! My roommates and I---who were perfectly sane and not the least bitter---thought this was a terrible injustice.
So there we were---sitting on the couch and lamenting about boys and berating ourselves for not coming up with a better plan for V-Day. (Apparently, we thought ordering pizza would be enough.) About halfway into our conversation, another roommate of ours joined in on our pity party and we proceeded to talk about literature, which made sense since most of us were English majors or minors.
And this is when our Valentine's Day became the Worst Valentine's Day Ever.
One of my roommates, Emmy*, started talking about the novel 1984 and how it made her feel uncomfortable. (Emmy was the lone non-English major of the bunch.) The rest of us were a little taken back. 1984? Really? So we prodded Emmy a little further. Why didn't she like 1984? What was it that made her uncomfortable? We went on the offensive. Emmy got a little defensive. And finally, Emmy admitted that...
She did not think 1984 was appropriate for a high school audience.
Jaws dropped. Emotions spiked. Teeth were gnashed. We told Emmy that 1984 was a classic and she was simply too sensitive. Eventually, Emmy started crying. (Not our most shining of moments.)
That night, we all went to bed grumpy and miffed and still hating boys.
It was, seriously, the weirdest Valentine's Day experience of my life. And I don't even like 1984 that much!
So what's your worst/weirdest Valentine's Day experience? And do you have any fun plans for today? Justin and I are going to watch the King's Speech and trying out a new restaurant in Bethesda. We shall not talk about George Orwell. :)
*Names have been changed to protect the innocent. (Although "Christina" is far from innocent. She's still a crazy bitch in my book!)
