Like a Super Bowl for women, Valentine’s Day has our partners rushing to Target for last-minute flowers and candy at three times the normal cost, hoping their team makes a touchdown. It doesn’t matter if you’re not into sports; people still ask you what your plans are for game day.
Valentine’s Day isn’t a man’s holiday. After all, Hallmark doesn’t make cards for french fries and fellatio, but still, guys are just as psyched for the after party as their girlfriends. The other night, a woman asked my boyfriend and I how we met. He told her I was barefoot in a gas station. I told her he asked to warm my feet. In the movie “When Harry Met Sally” couples share their stories about how they met and fell in love.
While the people in the interviews were actors, their love stories were based upon real ones. In my interviews with young women in relationships, they all got excited while talking about their partner. Valentine’s Day only comes once a year, but love in a relationship isn’t in flowers and pink M&Ms. It was on their faces as they came to life.
Kailah Casillas, a journalism major, met her boyfriend at a fraternity and sorority event at another school in Georgia.
“We went to a formal with different dates. His girlfriend called him ‘Puppet,’” Casillas said. Casillas was walking across the street when her boyfriend’s then girlfriend and he were in a fight.
She hit him with a camera. “He introduced himself to me and said, ‘Hi I’m Puppet – I mean Ryan. You can just call me Parker. I thought it was funny,” Casillas said. Shortly after, Casillas quit her sorority, and she and Parker became close friends. And then more.
“We’re just always really silly together. I love how he has no problem busting a move in the middle of the living room,” Casillas said.
For Courtney Sidberry, friendship is also important in her relationship with her husband. They met in 2003 and didn’t begin dating until 2006.
“My roommate wanted me to meet this really weird guy. We wound up going to anime conventions and dying each other’s hair,” Sidberry said.
Sidberry and her husband constantly surprise and do little things for each other.
“He hates Pad Thai and spicy food, but he spent the whole day making it for me. It tasted unbelievably horrible, but it was the sweetest thing,” Sidberry said. The two got married in a Texas courthouse wearing shorts and sandals after they decided to buy a house.
“I’m not the kind of girl who gets dressed up. You shouldn’t have to be someone you’re not for anyone,” Sidberry said.
I don’t believe you’ll ever find someone who has everything in common with you, or who understands you completely, but all long-term relationships require acceptance of another person for better or for worse. Sarah Mcdonald’s girlfriend helped her overcome her depression. “I was suicidal, and she told me I could talk to her. Her smile makes me melt all the time,” McDonald said.
McDonald and her girlfriend met online, after she started following her blog. Their first date was at Nervous Nellies on Fort Myers Beach.
“I think because we built our relationship on such a strong friendship block, everything just fell into place,” McDonald said. McDonald realized they were meant to be about four months later, and her girlfriend did too. “We were at her lake house on Christmas Eve, and we went out to the dock. I turned around, and she had a teddy bear and a ring asking me to marry her.”
The two are getting married in Baltimore, Md., in May. I’m making them rainbow potholders. While marriage means the world to members of the LGBT community, it didn’t change anything in Sidberry’s relationship.
“It was just a legal status. Social pressures make you think otherwise,” Sidberry said. Although they have been married five years, and lived together more, this Valentine’s Day will be their first together alone. Casillas and her boyfriend plan on having a Valentine’s weekend. She found the transition from boyfriend and girlfriend to a serious relationship difficult at first when they moved in together after dating for only six months.
“I think everyone goes through a freshman phase where they just want to party and have fun. Once you find someone you really care about, and someone who will be there, it’s worth missing,” Casillas said.
You may feel silly lighting candles and sprinkling your bed with red glitter, but Valentine’s Day is important because it lets the woman in your life know she’s significant and you’re committed to her. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter whether you hand her a bouquet of daisies. All that matters is that no matter what you never let go of her hand.