Roommate Rants: Valentine's Day

Guess what, my roommate is back, but this time he screwed up. He failed to buy his girlfriend presents for Valentine's Day! Ouch! Hold on, before we jump to any conclusions, lets back this up about a week. It is Monday, February 8, 2010 and my roommate is behind on bills. First off, he has to pay his share of the rent (which obviously affects me!). Secondly, his truck broke down for the 3rd time this year, and he is already behind in payments from the first two malfunctions. So, with this in mind, he must work, and work constantly for he is a struggling server working for mere pennies. Moving forward, his girlfriend calls him up (on Monday) and tells him that she is going to go out of town the upcoming weekend because they didn't have anything planned. He told her that it was fine and that he had to work on Valentine's Day anyway. So, the week passes, and he slowly pays off his debts, one by one, day by day and then on Friday she tells him she has decided she wants to stay with him for the holiday. Awwww, isn't that sweet! (crys) He doesn't think much about the presents: one because he doesn't have the money and two she was planning to go out of town anyway. So guess what happens? Hahaha, you can almost see the planets align for this one!

Sunday, Valentine's Day, comes around. He gets off work at 5:30 p.m. and is exhausted. She wants to go to Macaroni Grill at 7:00 sharp, and so he immediately gets ready and makes the dreaded deadline. They have a lovely dinner, music, good conversation, the 'in the moment' gaze...and then everything stops.

She says, "I can't wait until you open my presents."

Time is suspended. He can't say anything. In his mind he's going idiot, idiot, idiot. And she is staring back, awaiting a response. He finally speaks, "Presents?"

She responds. "Yeah, I got you some presents and something special for this evening. What, you didn't get me any presents?"

He answers, "Well, I got some small stuff but I didn't actually get a present, present. I didn't know we were doing that."

She says, "What? I was shopping the other day, I told you that. What did you think I was buying? I feel like such an idiot."

Freeze

...Needless to say, the rest of the evening went on as one would imagine...sour...

As for the roommate rant...He was floored, perplexed, disturbed, and felt like crap. So he vented.

He asked, "Where did I go wrong?" He paused. "I mean, I don't have any money, she was going out of town, I still owe you money. I don't get it. I mean I got her the card, the flowers, a bottle of wine, the dinner...what else was I supposed to do?"

I responded (sarcastically, of course), "Well, I guess you should have bought her a present."

He continued as if not hearing. "You know, if the situation was reversed, where I bought her the presents and she didn't get me anything, I wouldn't react that way. I would be happy with a kiss on the cheek. Women...they never let anything slide. They are always on top of it...on top of everything."

He went on about Valentine's Day, explaining that it was the empty your wallet holiday. How it's all about the woman and the guy could care less.

On this particular issue, I have to side with my roommate. And it's not because I'm a guy, blah blah blah. I believe it was a failure in communication. She never revealed to him how much the holiday really meant to her, and he assumed it was a causal celebration because of the way he perceived her actions. Looking at the circumstances, I can't say that I wouldn't have made the same assumptions. However, in the end, they were both right and they were both wrong.

Happy Valentine's Day Everyone!