For many of us, today is a day to breathe a sigh of relief and profess solemnly to one another, “We made it, gentlemen. We’ve survived another Valentine’s Day successfully, all of our men are in tact, and a few of us even managed to get laid. Of course, now’s not the time to get cocky – remember, we’re only 364 days away from next year’s excursion and that doesn’t leave as much time for preparation as we would prefer…”
And mind you, if you didn’t know until reading this column that Valentine’s Day was yesterday, either you don’t have a girlfriend or you don’t have a girlfriend anymore.
You’re giving me that look like you just learned that your girlfriend’s cat can’t swim. Oh boy…
Frankly I think you’ve got a better chance of surviving after missing a woman’s birthday than you do after missing the sacred holiday, and I would’ve liked to think that none of us would’ve forgotten the utmost of important days on the dating calendar because, well, we can’t afford to make mistakes like this, guys! We’ve worked too long and too hard to overcome stereotypes of geeks and nerds just because we watch Battlestar Galactica and know the IP addresses of all of our favorite websites by heart, only to flush it all down the toilet like a “sleeping” goldfish by carelessly forgetting game day in the land of relationship have-ers!
Ok – just take a deep breath. Scolding isn’t going to get us anymore … man, would growing up have been a little easier if they’d followed that mantra! Now let’s just take a moment to think and certainly we can come up with some sort of sure-fire way to save the day and win back the affection that you’ll likely otherwise never know again…
Hmmm…
Eh…
No, that won’t work, either. And besides, where are we going to find that many chickens on a Saturday night, anyways?!
But you know what might work? And actually, I’m even going to give you three different options just in case you need a runner up to fall back on because, well, I feel your pain. We’ve all been there before, and we can all certainly vouch that hell hath no fury like a woman who didn’t get her box of gourmet chocolates on Valentine’s Day! Now mind you, these have all been ranked in order from probably your best bet to nearly all hope is lost, so just be sure to work your way down from the top, if applicable, and for God sakes keep your fingers crossed…
Saving Throw #1: Time Travel
In all reality, the ultimate best way to reconcile this situation has got to be by preventing it from ever happening in the first place, so just build yourself a time machine, hop back a day or three, and whatever you do, don’t forget Valentine’s Day twice!
What’s that? You don’t know how to build a time machine?! And you call yourself a geek…
Saving Throw #2: Play Dumb
Actually, apparently this should be a rather fitting option if you don’t know how to build a time machine, or perhaps you did build it right and then just got so caught up with watching American Idol that you plumb forgot all over again…
To pull off this technique, dash off to the store and buy everything that you would normally purchase for Valentine’s Day – you’ve actually got an advantage here because everything should be at least 50% off at this point! Then you make your dinner reservations for tomorrow, dress yourself up real nice, and do your very best acting to convince her that you’ve just been so busy at work that you actually thought that Sunday was Valentine’s Day. Granted, even with a stellar performance, you won’t get the full points that you may have been rewarded had you actually pulled it off on the right day, but it certainly beats sleeping on the couch … or worse yet, back at your own apartment!
Saving Throw #3: Beg, Grovel, and Plead.
Believe me, none of us wanted it to come to this, but at this point we’re kinda running out of options and you certainly don’t want to have to go back to the single life, now do you?! Just take a brief trip down memory lane with regards to what you used to eat as a single guy and then let me know when you’ve come to your senses…
This one’s not gonna be easy – in fact, if you’ve still got any parts leftover from that time machine, you may want to give it another go before resorting to option #3. Be prepared for lots of shoe shopping, hanging out with her friends, and you can just forget about seeing any action flicks at the theater for a while. If you’ve already become more domesticated, so to speak, you can certainly count on plenty of laundry and dishes and vacuuming and pretty much anything else that she can think of for you to do around the house at least until Memorial Day! You’ll be making romantic dinners, watching all of her crap on TV, and maybe if you’re lucky, there will be a random instance of pity sex in there for you every now and then.
It sounds like an awful lot – maybe too much for forgetting one lousy, stinking holiday, but remember, back when you were single, there wasn’t even any pity sex. Well, it was pitiful, but there was only one of you, so that doesn’t really count! Just suck it up, do whatever you have to do to stop this train from derailing altogether in a horrific accident that will burn for days to come, and then in addition, start planning just how you’re going to make sure that you don’t forget come next year.
That’s right – only 364 days. A man’s job never ends…if we’re lucky, anyways…