A Valentines ménage à trois

Valentines Day: Love it or hate it, it's that time again! V-Day has never really been a favorite holiday of mine, however, this year I can at least look forward to the fact that save for an apocalyptic meteor striking earth, nothing could reasonably happen that would be worse than last year. What, you might ask, could have possibly been that bad?

Imagine this: You wake up in a sun-drenched, Santa Monica apartment belonging to a man whom you've known (both in the platonic and romantic sense of the word) for over 5 years . You get dressed as he feeds his 5-month-old, devastatingly adorable Husky puppy. When the puppy is fed and you're ready to go, you all leave the apartment for a walk along the Santa Monica promenade. You stop at The Coffee Bean for some delicious, blended coffee concoction, not available in the Northeast. Frozen beverage in hand, you continue down the promenade to a chorus of "look how cute!"s and "how old is he?!"s, stopping every few feet to let the oglers pet the slobbering little canine. You stop in a Sunglass Hut where he helps you pick out a beautiful new pair of (red) designer shades before heading to the beach so that you can put your feet in the Pacific. You stroll down the shore, taking pictures of each other, laughing about times past and throwing a tennis ball for the puppy. When the sun starts to set, you head to the grocery store to buy the ingredients for the Valentines Day dinner that you will prepare from scratch. You return to his apartment where you sip red wine and smoke a joint while you cook the dinner that you will eat on the table he has carefully set, complete with a red candle as the centerpiece.

You might be thinking to yourself that this sounds like a no less than lovely little Valentines Day. Well, that might have been the case if it weren't for the fact that I left out one little detail: this man has a girlfriend. And it isn't you. Now you might be assuming that this man was cheating on her with you; still not an ideal V-Day set-up, but exciting in that forbidden kind of way. But alas, you have been mislead.

Let me clear a few things up. First of all, Mr. Santa Monica's girlfriend was present for the majority of the events detailed in the above description. She was present during the preparation and consumption of the Valentines Day dinner. I am no longer sleeping with Mr. Santa Monica nor was I at the time of my visiting him. When I woke up in his "sun-drenched apartment," I was on the couch, in the living room (that had not yet been furnished with window blinds), literally getting urinated on by the puppy that he and his girlfriend have raised together. The talks about times past during our walk on the beach centered around his love for his new girlfriend and his complete lack of continued feelings for me ("Isn't it great?! That we can hang out and there is NO SEXUAL TENSION anymore?! It's not like before at ALL!). He is (and was then) an Ex. Please note that I did not say "ex-boyfriend," as I have never had the convenience of being able to assign a label to any of the (very) many, usually tremendously complicated, relationships that I have had with men over the past decade or so (at times leading my poor parents to question my sexuality as they are not kept privy to my casual sexual exploits). So, Mr. Santa Monica was no exception. Relationship complicated? Check. Long history of sexual tension? Check. Release of sexual tension on a few select occasions? Check. Elusive and impossibly undefinable relationship? Check check and check!

How, you might ask, did I end up forced into servility, slaving in the kitchen for literally hours (alone) cooking Valentines Day dinner for my Ex and his current lover? I wish I knew. It was something to do with a poorly timed business trip to Southern California, a lack of other places to stay, and a group dinner that in the end, was only attended by our small group of 3. If that's not awkward, I don't know what is.

I think this year I'll settle for excessive chocolate consumption and a chick flick.