Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Valentines Day Agony

I hate Valentines Day.

Or, more precisely, I hate being single on Valentines Day.

I walked into work this morning, hoping to avoid the "morning rush deliveries" of flowers/ candy/ chocolates/ love-heart pillows/ enormous cartoon-shaped love balloons. I'd only ever received one special delivery at work, and I think it was because my "secret admirer" (aka my ex-boyfriend from 5 years ago) felt sorry for me. Nevertheless, I still felt like a princess when I received the teddy bear and flowers that were delivered to me.

Anyway, I hadn't spoken to my "secret admirer" for at least 12 months, so I wasn't expecting any special deliveries this year.

As soon as I sat down in my office, I heard squeals of delight from outside my door. Curiousity piqued, I went to see what was going on, only to discover that a fellow office-mate had received some Valentines Day goodies from her "love-shnookem" of 5 months.

Oh geez, shoot me now. If it's going to be like this all day....

After all, there were another 39 other office girls who were waiting with bated breath for an "unexpected" delivery to come their way.

Ten minutes later, another office-mate started giggling hysterically when the florist delivery man arrived with a bunch of red roses for her table. Again, received with love from her (surprise, surprise) "hunny-bunny" of 8 months.

5.00pm - where are you?!

Don't get me wrong - I'm not against the idea of Valentines Day. I just don't like the feeling of being unloved (or un-flowered/ un-candied/ un-ballooned) while everyone else around me scored goodies. It must be girl thing.

I stayed away from the main office area as much as I could. As soon as the third set of flowers got delivered at 8.14am, I bundled up my laptop, an armful of files and my notepad and took refuge in an empty interviewing room upstairs from the main office.

Unfortunately, my laptop only had 2 hours' battery life, so at around 10.30am, I had to migrate back to my office. Even more unfortunate, I had to walk through the main office area to get back to my room. Which meant that I saw all the colourful flowers and deliciously wrapped candy/ chocolates that had been delivered so far.

What was even more depressing was the fact that Roland, the senior partner, received a delivery of yellow roses. From his lovely (and obviously very thoughtful) wife.

Seeing deliveries for the office girls was one thing. But witnessing the delivery of flowers for a male partner was something totally different altogether. Again, don't get me wrong - it was really cute that Roland got flowers for Valentines Day. It just meant that I felt more "unloved" (a guy? an OLD guy? getting flowers? and I haven't even got a whiff of a text message saying "Happy Valentines Day"?!) - I didn't think it was possible, but there you go.

I seriously don't know how I got through the morning - what with the squeals, giggling and unwrapping of candy.

By 3.00pm, I was on the verge of going nuts.

Just ignore them, Tia. Flowers and chocolates don't mean anything. Being single is cool! Remember that. Hurry up, 5.00pm!

The minutes ticked slowly by. Love notes started floating around the office. ("Oooh I wrote my hunny a letter of appreciation for the flowers he gave me today. I'm going to make him read it while we're having a romantic candlelit dinner tonight. You wanna read over it? You think it's too corny? Come on, tell me what you really think..")

Just when I thought I was going to lose my cool, my cell beeped.

I'd received a text message:

"Hey babe. Just wanted to wish you a happy valentines day. Hope you're having a great day. P.S. I miss having you around."

The love-of-my-life come ex-boyfriend from 2 years ago. We'd broken up when I first moved to the country, but we still kept in touch.

That one text message made my whole afternoon seemed a lot more bearable.

Lucky it was already 4.47pm.

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