For every devoted Valentine’s Day fan, there are probably 247 people who detest it — the hoopla, the pressure, the ick factor of a holiday all about the commodification of monogamy. Hating on Valentine’s Day has become a near universal pastime.
But for some women, that dislike stems comes directly from the past, from surviving a Valentine’s Day so cringeworthy no one could blame them from crawling under a rock on February 13th and refusing to emerge until at least the 16th. Here, we salute 15 brave women of the HuffPost Women Facebook community who are sharing their real-life Valentine’s Day fails. Prepare to be horrified.
Mine is the age old tale of boy meets girl … girl falls wildly in love with boy … boy cheats on girl — then he took me out for dinner on Valentine’s Day eve to tell me about his torrid affair over a lovely meal and even lovelier bottle of wine, in a public, local restaurant to avoid the ensuing scene.
I’m such an idiot: I cried, he said all the right things and I went back to his place. We had wild sex, I slept over and gave him a gift and a card in the morning. I know. It was over within days, once I’d come to my senses.
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My boyfriend and I had been dating for about three-and-a-half years and living together for almost three when things started to get a little too comfortable between us — the fire had gone out and I really wanted to fix things. (Really, honestly, I wanted to get laid.) So for Valentine’s Day, I rented the best hotel room at the best hotel in a neighboring city, and even signed us up for a six-course meal. It was ridiculously expensive.
Once we were settled in the room, I decided the two of us taking a bubble bath was a sexy plan. Five minutes into sitting in the tub together, he suggested we turn on the TV. I agreed because I thought that making him happy was a good idea, but instead we ended up sitting in the tub for a solid hour doing nothing but watch “Family Guy” — and he was basically asleep by the time we got out. The whole thing was painful, monetarily and to my pride.
These accounts have been edited and condensed.
