A Choose-Your-Valentine Love Letter Adventure
These letters are works of fiction. Mostly.
These letters are works of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, places, or events is purely coincidental.
Unless it’s not. In which case, you will have to play the discernment game. Or, if you buy me a coffee, I’ll spill all the tea. (Only one way to see if I’m joking.) But again, coincidence!
Option 1:
Dearest lover,
Happy Valentine’s Day! I thought of a new short story idea. It would be titled, “The Academy for the Universally Broken Hearted.” It’s a working title, my love. This story features an eclectic cast of characters across all ages, places, walks of life who — upon experiencing a devastating black hole of a break up — promptly check into the Academy. Meals are served in a group dining hall. (Jilted lovers cannot be trusted to cook for themselves!) Courses include jaded poetry writing, day-drinking workshops, applied ethics of the rebound. Everyone picks a mandatory extracurricular “new hobby,” per the ways of the post-breakup cope. Don’t worry, there are at least three run clubs! One of the main characters will be twelve years old. Why? It’s a work in progress, my love. But ya gotta' admit, there’s something there.
Why a short story? My love, have we not been together long enough for you to notice my phobia for the long term? My verve for the start but my fouls with the follow-through? Beginnings are always the loveliest. Beginnings are parades of possibilities, each float blasting a theme song whose lyrics you get to fill in the blanks.
My love, a few notes for this weekend when we celebrate our three-month “meetiversary” (your term) with drinks at that hotel rooftop bar (you picked) notorious for its low lighting and absurdly priced gin and tonics. You are 8-10 years my senior, who’s counting, and with the disposable income to match, so these prices to you are just scribbles on a tab. But I’m afraid what will mean something is when I rush off to the bathroom as you sit confused and alone at a high-top, wondering how could I already be so tipsy from just one absurdly priced gin and tonic? Little do you know I mixed two doubles beforehand alone at my apartment because 1) I was having a bad hair day, two) you only read non-fiction self-help books and three) I’ve felt this unshakeable pang now for several weeks that the world was closing in on itself, shrink-wrapping my body, stealing the oxygen from my brain, narrowing day by day by day into this dim path I will never be able to fork off, my feet will just keep cement-trekking one dull patter-step after the next. On my way out the bathroom, the bartender will catch my eye. He has a face reminding me of every other face I met when I was twenty-going-on-twenty studying abroad, and the world was an uncracked egg, its yolk mysterious, thick, bright, and my body hungry. So hungry.
Have you ever felt like this, my love? No? Well, can’t say I’m surprised! Both our dating profiles flagged our armor of nonchalance. “Figuring out my dating goals.” But it’s bigger than that, isn’t it? I try not to cry in the bathroom.
Option 2:
Dearest lover,
Happy Valentine’s Day! I know we’ve only been on two dates. I know date one went off perfectly pleasant, checked all the boxes. Easy conversation, a cheeky little walked-you-to-your-car kiss. I know date two lasted twice as long, and even ended back at my place, where we used our hands and lips and private bits to perform perfectly pleasant adult love acts.
But you kept your shirt on? No, really, you did! How do you not remember? And if I’m being perfectly honest — and please keep open ears as I explain — I’m not entirely sure I wanted to have sex that night. There are some moments, actually many in life, where your thoughts don’t quite make sense next to one another. They’re half-formed blobs spilling one after the next, and time flips the page so fast you can’t quite parse which to pay attention to, much less act upon. Better to just power off parts of that pesky chatter, commit to the here, the now. This sounds frustratingly passive, even problematic. I know I probably did have time in that moment to say hey, y’knowwhat, something about this feels forced. Going through the motions. Eating the meal without savoring any taste. I didn’t feel coerced or in danger, my love. What I did feel was in that moment, we were two actors playing the parts of two people on a fun Friday date. Two late-twenty somethings hobbling about, wondering how to fill our time, worried we were falling behind behind, frustrated by the gravitational pull of a narrative saying we were falling behind behind, doing our darndest amidst this deluge of closed-door fallacies and intimacy yearnings and just trying to maximize the whimsied weekend — but deep down we both know now it’s all gonna feel worse.
You asked if I came. This made me sad. Not because it was obvious I hadn’t — which I said! — as gently as I could. I was sad because I think you and I are both grasping for something so precious and meaningful and human and fraught and painful and imperfect but true. We aren’t going to give it to each other.
Option 3:
Dearest lover,
Happy Valentine’s Day! I think you know this about me, but I got divorced at 28. Yes, this is unusual! Perhaps we can talk about it at length some day. Right now though, I guess I’d like to put it out there that I’m dating again for the first time in my entire adult life, literally since age 18, just trying to understand this thing I’ve heard my friends talk about called a good love, a safe love, instead of love with a person who makes you never want to get out of bed.
Option 4:
Dearest lover,
Happy Valentine’s Day! Ha! Joke’s on you! You’re alone this year. This is probably a good thing.
Option 5:
Dear lover,
Happy Valentine’s Day! I want to thank you for your patience. Also, a question: Would you like to know how I know I love you? It’s cause I’m learning where to put our earliest months. Those origin days of clean sheets new love, the ones so imbued with nostalgia they pierce your chest with pain. But it’s a trick, you see — believing nothing feels better than the good ole’ days.
Instead, for you, I view this time as shoveling coal in the fire. Build up that foundation as heaping as possible. Fuel the shit out of it. Give it what it needs to go the distance. The long, warm burn. Just keep piling and piling because you know times will change, and love by nature might be entropic, but hey, guess what, look at the stockpile we’ve made.
They say a good benchmark is would you want a sibling or friend to date someone like him? Your gut will have an immediate answer. It always does.
Three squeezes means I love you. A private language, a reminder on walks or in movie theaters or tucking into sleep. You usually squeeze my hand to say-not-say-it, but sometimes it’s other parts. If we are watching a movie you will start rubbing my feet. I mention liking drink X or dish Y and next weekend, guess what ingredients are in your fridge? You are good at this, this verb of love.
I wouldn’t say I’m scared, because that wouldn’t quite be right. What I will say is I often catch myself feeling how I imagine babies do when they fight falling asleep. Just sink into it, baby. Some dreams are good, some bad. You do your best. You’ll learn it doesn’t have to feel so hard.
