Valentine's Day

I have never ever ever had a boyfriend on Valentine's Day. I have dumped boyfriends right before Valentine's Day multiple times, but never had the utilitarian realization that waiting until after V-Day to split might make for better enjoyment all around. Of course, I would be seen as a manipulative bitch who waited until I had cleaned up on the luvvy-duvvy gifts before cutting random suckers loose.

Then again, as you can probably tell by my use of the term random sucker, ex-boyfriends generally begin to consider me as a manipulative bitch anyway because 1) they are hurt that I dumped them, and 2) they subconsciously realize that the reason I dumped them is because I decided that they were perhaps not as intelligent and entertaining as I previously thought. Relationships and me are not a match made in heaven because of my extremely short attention span. I am a little girl in more ways than one.

Granted, looking young is another factor that leads to the lack of worthwhile boyfriends. Like Jesus says, when you look like you are 12 years old, the guys that think you are hot are the ones with pedophilic tendencies [read: skeezy boys]. Not to say that I will never be liked by anyone who is not off, just to say that it doesn't happen often.

But, I do know that it is true what everyone says about me looking young. Chloe tries to tell me that it is just our guy roommates making fun of me, but I have 2 unquestionably decisive examples to the contrary.

Example 1: This summer I go "home" and attend my parents church for the first time. They introduce me as their oldest daughter who was away at school for the past year, and say that the separation was new for our family. You would usually assume that being away from family for the first time probably meant that you were a freshman in college. This would be incorrect in my case, but still a valid guess, especially considering mine is an age within the college freshman range. But instead, multiple people thought that I was in high school and invited me to join the high school youth group. Specifically, and humiliatingly they somehow thought that I was a high school freshman...spending my high school years at a far away boarding school for some reason? I don't know.

Example 2: On the way back to Sea-town at the end of the summer, I sit in the exit row on the plane. The flight attendent comes up to me and says, "I'm sorry, hon, but are you 15 yet? Because otherwise you can't sit in the exit row." When I informed her that I was fully 4 years older than 15 she looked at me like I had offended her and said "Well, you certainly look awwwfully young, dear," and pranced away.

This is why I am generally jaded with the concept of Valentine's Day. I extremely open to being shown that a Valentine's Day where you are not single and also not dating someone you can't seem to like is possible, but I am pessimistic about this year's chances for that kind of experience.

"I'm not bitter, I'm cynically hopeful"
-Shirt bought with Olive