Friends

Valentine’s Day Survival Guide–Pt 2

Cindy McCain

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As I said in Part One yesterday, 2007 I had a new plan and a new attitude for surviving Valentine’s Day.

When I was married, it never occurred to me how much I needed women in my life.   I was too buried beneath diapers to change, birthday parties to plan, coupons to clip, papers to grade, and a house to clean.  My husband and children were my center.  Anyway, all my girlfriends had also been body snatched, living for the men and kids in their orbits as well.

But when my world was thrown off course by the end of my sixteen-year marriage, my worldview was shaken.  Despite –-no, because of—a lot of pain, I learned to reorganize my priorities.  With the help of some wise, older women who helped me start over, I began to take care of myself so I could better care for my children.

I freed myself from the “shoulds”that said before I could play with my children, exercise, or see friends, I “should”… have a straight house, an organized desk, and an empty briefcase.  But the one should I couldn’t shake was that to be totally happy I needed to be loved by the right man.  While I’d refused to settle for dating just for dating’s sake and while I enjoyed time alone, I still believed a significant other was required to navigate Valentine’s Day.

Christmas can be filled with family gatherings, office parties, even Rudolph and Bing, but Valentine’s Day is for couples.  And while kissing is part of New Year’s Eve, friends celebrate in droves whether at parties, bars, or Times Square.  There’s something painfully exclusive about Valentine’s– tables for two.  Having a soulmate is the sole focus.

Previously, if a friend had told me there’s anything better than romance and chocolate on Valentine’s Day, I would have thought her to be lying, denying, or just sadly settling.  If she then really pressed her luck and told me there’s something better than spending Valentine’s Day with The One, I’d have told her to stop worrying.  Though I am pathetically passionate which makes the weeks leading up to mid February painfully poignant, I really didn’t need her to go on Suicide Watch.

Then again, Homicide Watch might have been a good idea. Waiting on Cupid had become Waiting for Godot..  I really wanted to take a hit out on the little sucker for directing my dating life as absurdist comedy as I watched and waited for a leading man over a decade.   He knew I wanted nothing more than to be  Heathcliff’s Catherine…Johnny’s June…McDreamy’s Merdith… or Harry’s Sally.  In fact, for the girl who fell in love with Heathcliff of Wuthering Heights as a high school senior, anything short of finding my soulmate who would proclaim, “I am Cindy!” seemed to be settling.  But not settling meant I had to be patient.  And again, instead of focusing on what I lacked, it was time to focus on what I had.

And that’s when I thought of Chocolat—not just because I love Juliette Binoche and all things chocolate. Not just because I adore Johnny Depp as Roux more than any other part he has ever played.  And not just because I, too, have a pair of red shoes and my child asks me why I can’t be like “all the other mothers.”  Like Vianne, I wanted to reach out to others—particularly the women in my life—because I think goodness is defined by what we do, not what we don’t do, by who we include, not who we exclude.    Rather than invite only close friends from this group or that, I decided to bring together the amazing and unique women I knew.  It would be a chance for them to network, to make new friends.

So I abandoned the usual ritual on V Day of taking an annual inventory of guys I’d dated over the past 12 month.  Rather than analyzing why each love connection short circuited or never even had enough electricity to fizzle at all—I had dated guys ranging in age from their twenties to their fifties and in occupations from songwriters to businessmen to blue collar workers.    Most had been the usual One-Date-Wonders.  Turning my attention instead to my guest list, I found my women friends were even more diverse…and interesting.

Sports nuts and Art lovers.  Nurses and teachers.  A publicist, a coach,  counselors.  Never marrieds, remarrieds, forever marrieds.  Moms and Grandmothers.    Dog lovers, vegetarians, democrats, republicans.  Horsewomen, runners, farm girls.  Californians, New Orleanians, Yankee Italians.   A band leader.  A band leader’s wife.  It could have been a disaster.  But something told me to chance it anyway.  I was worried no one would come. Valentine’s Eve fell on a weeknight and everyone is so busy.  But shortly after the invitations were sent, the replies began rolling in.  Everyone was excited.

Thus commenced the “Valentine’s Eve Hopeful Romantic Party.”  Those with sweethearts could still celebrate with their guys and those without would be too tired from the party to care.  Either way we’d all usher in the Big Day together.

So….make your guest list and get going!  Whether you use Facebook,  send an Evite or an invitation by mail—store bought or created by you—do it now.  Just one week till V Day.  And this year it’s on a weekend—a real bonus.  If you’re inviting women who have sweethearts, then make it next Friday, on Valentine’s Eve.  That way you can still see your honey, and if you don’t have one, you’ll be too tired to care.

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Valentine’s Day Survival Guide–Part 1

Cindy McCain

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My best friend Kim always inadvertently refers to Valentine’s Day as Halloween. Some sort of brain switch she says. Given the terrifying nature of February 14th for many singles, I get it. Just when a girl survives New Year’s Eve, she is stalked by that little hood, Cupid. At least Father Time, a gentleman, plays fair. He confines his Love Fest to one night and even designates the stroke of twelve as the official time for couples across the globe to make out. This gives a single woman the chance to make-like-Cinderella and head home.

Eros, however, doesn’t give a girl a break. No sooner than she finishes her black-eyed peas and cabbage in front of the football game and changes ESPN to the Food Network, the Barefoot Contessa starts dipping strawberries for Jeffrey, and Paula Deen commences  frying up some love for Michael. The rapid fire of V Day reminders—candy, hearts, flowers, and getaway package deals—leaves singles shell shocked—especially since we know we’ll get sweet nothings…literally. Six weeks of all-inclusive hype leading up to a day that bars singletons from participating. Not cool.

Cupid is especially hard on the Hopeless Romantics like a never-married-forty-something friend I haven’t seen in years. She used to say, “Valentine’s Day shines a spotlight on all who haven’t been chosen.” I wonder if she still grins and bear it, then the next day drags her bruised heart back to the gym–business as usual–carb counting and cardio classes.

And to be fair, 2/14 isn’t always easy on guys either—and I’m not talking about the Commitment-Phobic (aka Friends with Benefits). These guys fall off the radar, following the groundhog into his hole on February 2nd to ask if they can crash with him for awhile until, say, February 15.

No, I’m talking about the few, the proud, The Good Guys who are truly in love. Some of my guy friends confess that they get performance anxiety when faced with the pressure of planning the perfect Valentine’s Day for their sweethearts.  I’ve got some ideas for you, too.

So to the shell shocked and the somewhat confused, relief is on the way…

In the next few posts I’ll tell singles how to not only survive but thrive in V Day’s wake. I’ll explain how a couple of years ago I learned to embrace the power of love for one night, launching a more passionate affair with life. Valentine’s Day looks different than what I imagined…maybe better. Rather than being a hopeless Romantic, I’m now a hopeful one.

So whether you’re solo or in a couple, I’ll offer ideas for making the Big Night more special. I’ll start with the singles because you have to get busy planning. You’re throwing a party, and here’s why…

I’ve been called a Hopeless Romantic all my life. I’ve lived so much in a Dream World I could instruct members of the Witness Protection Program on how to vanish from Reality. At the age of 4 rather than having just any imaginary friend, I had Ringo Starr–my very own boyfriend. Only in a child’s fantasy would I drop a drummer (always been attracted to the band boys), but I traded up for a Pretty Boy lead singer—in fact, solo act, the King himself. Christening my Maiden Voyage toward netting the ideal Catch—the tall, the dark, the handsome—I began fancying the father of my dolls to be Elvis. He had left his love interests in  Blue Hawaii and Viva Las Vegas to settle down with me. We were very happy.

Contrary to popular belief, my incorporating fantasy males into my childhood play did not make me Boy Crazy. I’ve always been monogamous. I’ve always wanted to cut to the chase and live happily ever after with THE ONE. So as a preteen, I’d lie on our den couch reading Going Steady, imagining what it would feel like to snag a guy’s class ring and my first kiss. Desperate to find a boyfriend, I began contemplating the upside of a sprained ankle. It would be worth the pain because I imagined the cutest boy in the school carrying me to every class.

As I grew older, I became bored with my Davy Jones Fan Club and even more impatient to find true love. I sympathized with Pinocchio who longed to be a real boy; I longed to date one. When I finally did, although the feat didn’t require swooning or breaking bones, I became such a pain to others they conspired to drown me in the Gulf of Mexico. It was Spring Break 1977 and I was one of six girls who piled out of my mom’s Buick Electra onto Panama City Beach. Though once inspired by a coming-of-age classic to experience firsthand Where the Boys Are, I no longer cared to find them. I was hooked on one boy, maybe even The One, and not interested in a spring fling. So while the other girls hit the waves with a group of Alabama guys staying at our hotel, I never left my lounge chair. Eyes closed tightly for a solid week, I mouthed Leo Sayer’s words: “When I need you, I just close my eyes and I’m with you.” I visualized seeing my boyfriend, counted off the days, and finally returned home. The only thing I had to show for my vacation-turned-vigil was a strange tan line in the shape of the portable 8-track tape player I had clutched tightly to my chest.

I didn’t think much then about ditching the girls… and not just because my focus on The Guy seemed to pay off when we married three years later. Ditching girls for guys was what teenaged girls did. It wasn’t until twenty years with The Guy morphed into ten years without him that I realized grown up women do the same thing. Once they find the One, they are too often bodysnatched, leaving their friends to talk to them via Facebook or the occasional phone call.

Meanwhile, trying to prove my patience as I optimistically waited on love, I bravely went solo to Valentine’s Day openings of radically romantic (and critically bad) movies like Bed of Roses. Though I sowed faith in love, I reaped only thorns (scary dates I didn’t like OR guys I liked but who didn’t like me.) More often the primrose path I had hoped for was a desert—a No Man’s Land of dry spells that stretched out before me for months…and years.

Trying Plan B, I traded one kind of Magical Thinking for another. Rather than believe my prince was Map Questing the way to my front door, I traded my romanticism for stoicism, pretending I didn’t want a man anyway. Though this approach seemed like a textbook case of Sour Grapes, it was really just another form of Magical Thinking. Secretly I hoped the adage was true that if I’d just forget about love, Cupid would find me. He didn’t.

Moving onto Plan C, I tweaked Dinner and a Movie. My version was Champagne and Cable. If I couldn’t do a night on the town with a date, at least I could do a romantic movie marathon home alone.

In 2006 Plan D, my most creative coping device for surviving the Big Day, was buying a $100 ticket to see  Bon Jovi and pretending Jon was singing just to me.

2007 required something really radical. For all my crying that I hadn’t found The One, I finally realized I’d found instead The Many–girl friends who had been there for me where males feared to tread.    The very reason I love Sex and the City–the soul mates the girls found in each other–was what I, too, had grown to cherish.  I’m convinced that  only when we’re single again, or single-all-along do we fully realize what our girlfriends mean.

I decided in 2007 I’d celebrate what I had—not mourn what I didn’t.  The invitation is self-explanatory and follows. More on the guest list, activities, food and fun tomorrow. If you’re a single female reader, get ready. Tomorrow I’ll tell you how to plan your First Annual Girls’ Night In…Celebrating the Many while waiting on The One!  If you’re a guy who needs to plan the big day for your girl, stay tuned.  We all know most of you won’t sweat it till the 11th or 12th hour anyway.

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