I know that I am going to come off as a little cynical when I say I don’t like Valentine’s Day, but aside from the fact that I think Valentine’s Day is commercialized and impersonal, I had a very bad/entertaining experience that has hindered forever Valentine’s Day.

Clearly I don’t do relationships very well but back in the day when I tried the whole “boyfriend thing” I was a horrible girlfriend.  I never did well with rules of dating or monogamy.  Anyways, the first time I was in a relationship during Valentine’s Day I was away on vacation the week before, so I gave my boyfriend his gift a week early. I gave him this cute little white teddy bear that was holding a red heart in its hands that said “I love you.”

He must have found out that I had accidentally kissed a couple guys one drunken night a few weeks earlier…

Because he responded to my gift with a very affectionate public display of love. During class, he sent me a note ordering me outside to his truck to see the gift. He had tied my teddy bear to the front of his truck, slashed open the heart with a knife and then went mudding. A note on the dashboard said “this is what you did to my heart.”

Ooops.

I don’t do Valentine’s Day or relationships anymore.

-Alexis Patron