I guess it’s hard for me to blur the line between love and everything else because the last time I hung out with a guy, we watched that old classic Pirates XXX. It didn’t even occur to me until later that he was probably thinking of dead kittens the entire time to avoid an awkward situation. College has this desensitizing effect when it comes to romance.
That said, nothing on the face of this planet will ever deter the human race from pursuing it with everything they’ve got.
One minute everything’s roses. The next, you’re driving down some deserted road in the absolute middle of nowhere, crying your heart out, softly crooning along to “Love Hurts” by Incubus. I totally feel you. Except not really.
“I will have a boyfriend by Valentine’s Day,” some girl always vows, whether it’s two days prior or somewhere around New Year’s. Yeah, dream on, g-friend. Are you so insecure that 24 hours of truffles and candy hearts sends you into panic overload and makes you question your self-worth? If you answered yes, reevaluate your life and what’s important in it. Gawd.
Singles’ Awareness Day is the new anti-prom. Way to make the single life seem like the new leprosies. Don’t elect to be a victim. The real victims of this holiday are the guys who have to shell out $70 for a meal in a snobby French restaurant.
There will always be the people who are obsessed with the idea of love rather than finding love itself. You can’t be in love with an idea – that’s how cat ladies come to exist. Having a significant other won’t make you happy; having the right significant other will.
There’s always that girl who’s got the oversized Notebook poster in her room and the MySpace wallpaper of some Abercrombie models making out in the snow. She consumes Jane Austen books steadily and is hopelessly inflicted with a Cinderella complex. She’s setting herself up for disappointment. No guy wants to make out naked in snow, men shouldn’t sparkle and Romeo and Juliet had a rager of a communication fail.
If you’re talking in fairytale terms, there are some frogs out there. If you’re talking in my terms, there are some absolute wastes of air out there. A friend of mine, not wanting to face a solo Valentine’s Day, accepted an invitation to hang out with some dude she didn’t know all that well. In her hungover state the next morning, she only recalled being naked and him telling her she could keep her flip-flops on.
Being single is better than being date-raped, in my humble opinion. But I acknowledge that everyone has a different idea of what true love is, like when Clarence killed Alabama’s pimp because a hallucination of Elvis told him to. She broke down crying because it was “so romantic!”
You can’t get by with being someone just to be with someone. A mutual love of Celine Dion, no matter how deep, just isn’t enough to hinge a relationship on. (A bit of trivia: “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now” is supposedly based on Wuthering Heights, another book I neglected to read.) If you’re reading this, there are fair odds that you’re 18 to 24 years old and therefore too young and pretty to settle.
Happiness is a choice you make. You don’t have to be upset that you’re missing out on something you’ll inevitably end up with eventually. You may not meet Natalie Portman tomorrow, but it could happen. It could be six months down the line when you get stuck in an elevator with her on an MGM lot.
I had this completely gross teacher once – no, really, she had a mullet and her name was Mrs. Crabbe – and she had managed to find someone, so you’re all shoe-ins for that happily ever after.
MICHELLE RICK recommends serenading your significant other with “Give It Up” by Pepper, provided they have a sense of humor. If they doesn’t have a sense of humor, dump them immediately and skip the big V all together, but make sure you send all the juicy details to marick@ucdavis.edu.
