I am going to confess something here on Project Infinity. I used to LOVE Valentine’s Day. I would get so excited about the things I could do to surprise my significant other and make her happy that my guy friends would find it nearly disgusting. Of course I didn’t care. When it came to making my girl happy, I would have no fear of taking chances and I would have no doubt that she’d be happy. There was just one problem. A problem many guys think about when it comes to getting something for their girl. I had very little money.
But being creative was always my thing and so even if I had tons of money, it wouldn’t have made a difference – at least to me. These days, I do have indifference with V-Day because I don’t believe that there needs to be a set day to celebrate your love or infatuation for another. There are 364 other days you can do that. Guys typically get so caught up and pressured into having to do something big on these days and some women have been spoiled and others have these expecations for what their guys are going to do and at times, it can become a letdown and often lead to arguments, sadness, bitterness, jealously (of others) and rethinking of the person that they love, just because he didn’t come through BIG TIME on this one day. The idea of that just sounds ridiculous. And you know, with all the horror stories I hear about V-Day, it's just better to say that some people love it others don't. It's just like the idea of New Year's Eve and the New Year's Kiss. Some people love it because they have someone to kiss. Others hate it. To me, it's just a moment in time. Would be nice, but doesn't HAVE to happen and it doesn't affect my emotion either way
V-Day in perspective does not compare Christmas, your birthday, your wedding day, the day of the birth of your child and other significant days. It just doesn’t. If your man can find various ways to tell you how much they love you and appreciate you throughout the year, why does V-Day HAVE to be different? Ok, the rant is over.
Having said that, I thought it would be cool to share a few stories of what I have done on or around V-Day that I thought were fun, special, creative and most importantly, meaningful.* These things didn't have to be done around this holiday but being younger, I admittedly was caught up in the hype. Here’s the first one.
*Let me preface by saying that these gifts were given in high school and some in college – you probably couldn’t replicate these considering the circumstances but I hope these stories can give you some ideas.
10th grade was the year I found someone that I cared about immensely for the first time. It was one of those relationships where we were good friends for a few years and then things began become more intimate and romantic. It was awesome. This was also my first REAL relationship. I was in a relationship before but I didn’t really consider it one. We were “together” for about 6 months and I probably saw her a handful of times. Her mom hated guys and if I got a chance to see her, it was some ridiculous scenario and lasted only 5 minutes. Clearly, I was not happy about that and “ended things.” (What was I really ending, anyway?) Blah, blah, blah.
Anyway, at my high school English class, every student was required to perform what is called a declamation. Performing a declamation required us to find some type of speech or monologue, memorize it and perform it in front of the class. It was supposed to teach public speaking and getting over certain fears when speaking in front of crowds. What can create more pressure than speaking in front of people that know you and are quick to make fun of you if you mess up?
Well our teacher gave us a cool opportunity. She allowed us to create our own declamation. I instantly thought this was better than memorizing some other literary non-sense so I jumped on it, not having any clue as to what to write about.
And then it hit me. What a way to surprise my girl than with something very cool, memorable and from the heart? So I decided to write a “since you've been gone” letter from me to my ex talking about my new girlfriend, my new love and how much she made me happy. Now on paper it sounds ridiculous and I’m not going to post what I wrote just because I know the person who I wrote this wouldn’t want that. But I will say this. It was one of the best things I have ever written. But there’s more to this.
So I bought a bouquet of roses and during homeroom, snuck it from my homeroom to the class where I was going to do the declamation. Completely interrupting homeroom, I hid it behind my teacher’s desk and my plan was to bring it out during my declamation, give it to her and continue. So awesome! My English teacher saw what I was doing and she thought it was going to be amazingly sweet. You could hear the collective “aww” from down the hall; it was absurd. So somehow I was able to keep this secret from her for a little over 3 hours. I found that to be incredible since about 60 people had already knew what was going down and people had to have told other people. But anyway, the time came and I had to do it.
For some reason, although my hands were sweaty, but I still felt pretty confident. It was by doing that speech where I found the importance of not only the ease of memorizing what you write yourself, but also the importance of how passionate you are with what you write. It’s part of the reason why I think President-elect Obama is an amazing speaker. There is a lot of confidence and passion there and it shows in his presentation. It's powerful. But I digress.
I remember making the speech and it felt like I was looking at her the entire time. I was so anxious to get to the point when I would so smoothly walk to behind the teacher’s desk and pull out the flowers. And when it happened, it was amazing. That moment when I gave her the flowers must have felt like it lasted for years – and it was an unbelieveable feeling. At that point, nothing else was going on. Not my speech, not my class, nothing. No one was around. It was just me and her. And I could tell that she felt that too. The rest of the speech didn’t matter to me. I did what I really wanted to do. But at that point, I was peaking confidence and I just finished the speech with ease. Needless to say, I got a near standing ovation for that one - and an A.
That became the talk of the school for many weeks. The girls loved me and the guys clearly hated on me. It didn’t matter. It was something that I knew she would never, ever forget.
I didn’t do this on V-Day but it was around the holiday and this served as the perfect way to give her something cool to show her how much she meant to me.
This was a fun story I wanted to share with everyone here. I hope you enjoyed it. I have one or two more stories to share that I think you’d love as well. I’ll share another one on Monday. In the meantime, instead of thinking of ways to “win” her on V-Day, try figuring out a way to “win” her NOW.
If you’d like help with that, shoot me an email or find me on Twitter.
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