There may be some legitimate history to Valentine’s Day, but best I can tell it was a joint creation between 1-800-Flowers and the makers of predictably rom-coms with short lived starlets.
For the most part, our generation isn’t too crazy about marriage. We put it off, or substitute a series of common law arrangements. Add to our generational fear of commitment, there are those of us with the “late bloomer” personality.
My romantic history is mainly a series of stories of idealized women I pined for and never made a move, with the occasional fly-by-night heartbreaks that left me incapacitated for months afterwards. And then there’s the ones that got away. Perfectly wonderful women, beautiful, Jesus-luvin’ ladies, that I just didn’t make an effort to pursue.
For those of us who just can’t seem to make it happen, love seems like a constant mystery. There are some amazing guys who just can’t seem to click with a girl. Fantastic ladies who seem to always be ignored. We busy ourselves with good work and good friends. Privately, we obsess over the ones that got away, regretfully reliving the lost opportunities every time they pop up in conversation or on the Facebook feed.
What can we do differently? If only we knew. Until then, we do the best to get our lives together. Maybe therapy, or a good group of friends, or a hobby. We save up money, work out, travel, and try to have meaningful friendships. We put ourselves out there, trying speed dating or online dating or blind dating.
With a little work, asking out a total stranger that you have little in common with is easy. But when you get to know a pretty one whom you also respect, and suddenly curl up in a ball and start doing all that nice guy stuff that always lands you in the friend-zone.
But, if we’re smart, we take the chances we didn’t when we were younger.
If we’ve learned anything, we know that failure isn’t nearly as bad as watching another one get away.
“What explains this puerile shallowness? I see it as an expression of our cultural uncertainty about the social role of men. It’s been an almost universal rule of civilization that girls became women simply by reaching physical maturity, but boys had to pass a test. They needed to demonstrate courage, physical prowess or mastery of the necessary skills. The goal was to prove their competence as protectors and providers. Today, however, with women moving ahead in our advanced economy, husbands and fathers are now optional, and the qualities of character men once needed to play their roles—fortitude, stoicism, courage, fidelity—are obsolete, even a little embarrassing.”
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