I know what you're thinking, that he has put every poet and philospher to shame with his skillz. Well, you're right.
Now cower before my romantic genius
Staff Column
Andrew Heaton
February 14, 2005
At this time last year I was confused and forlorn. A girl I was seeing and two of her friends had agreed to have dinner with me, but they all backed out when one of them had to go to Texas for surgery. I celebrated Feb. 14 passing out cards at an elderly care center. I went to a comic book store after one of the residents hit on me and bought a 25 cent Star Trek novel, then topped off the day with a quiet dinner with my parents.
“Why?” I asked myself, my friends and strangers standing near me in the bathroom. Why was Cupid so elusive? Why Aphrodite such a croan? True, I’ve got a funny accent because of all the Frasier I watched in middle school, and I’m only moderately attractive at best, but I’m tall and almost never unexpectedly hit people when I’m frustrated. I’ve been told these are the qualities women look for in a man. So by all accounts I’m quite the catch, in a long-term investment sense.
In time I learned what the problem was: me. I did not yet know how to read women. Verbal signs flanked my conversations like neon billboards on the interstate, but I was oblivious to them all, getting slapped while groping around for Braille. Months of watching and observing the fairer sex in bars have finally paid off. My eyes have been opened and I am at last woman-literate.
So this year, when my would-be Valentine responded to my e-mail with “I’m very busy on Monday,” I knew what she meant: “Let’s have a makeup date on Tuesday.” Today is St. Valentine’s Day, and in honor of this plucky third-century priest, we ask people to be our “Valentines.” Since the aforementioned girl could not be my Valentine because of scheduling purposes, I checked a calendar to see which saint celebrates a feast tomorrow on the 15th. Thus, I enthusiastically e-mailed the girl again, asking her to “be my Anthimus.”
She must be Baptist or something because she had no idea who Righteous Anthimus is, and thought the endearing term referred to a sexually transmitted disease or maybe an enema. Once I explained to her that being my Anthimus would only involve buying her dinner, she agreed. I promptly made reservations at a Japanese steak house in Oklahoma City. This will be a step up from the last time I took a girl out for dinner at Bennigan’s, back in the Clinton administration. I may not know the three-legged gopher running circles in a hamster wheel that is the female mind, but I do know that raw fish plus knife juggling equals romance.
The other vast improvement in my courtship techniques comes in the field of gift-giving. I noticed several years ago that girls “like stuff.” But what kind of stuff? What combination of dainties and flora will pry open a woman’s heart and lips? Learning the art of gift-giving was pure trial and error. Merely obscure gifts, like pictures of yourself glued to a spatula, come off as puzzling or creepy. Neither is quantity the key. I learned that the hard way when I gave a girl three boxes of coffee filters for Christmas, which brings me to my third point, that women just don’t appreciate the cost efficiency of buying in bulk when it comes to amore. Nay, the rusty hinge of romance is lubricated by uniqueness.
Only novice romantics give cliche presents like bouquets of roses. That’s because real romance is vacating the comfort of your own mind, climbing into someone else’s skull, and squeezing their heart like a plumb. Stretching beyond simple candy or pre-made Hallmark cards shows your significant other that you know their tastes, their fancies and their soul. When you buy your girlfriend a pound of gummy bears (her favorite) it means more than a box of Godiva. Scribbling a love note in broken Portugese is sweeter than an eloquent sonnet when your date is fluent in it and recognizes the time, attention and effort that hug each tilde on the page. Romantic intrigue, executed properly, is so intimate and personal that other people can’t understand the depth or significance of your gesture. Real romance entails stepping out of your life and waltzing in a world known only to you and your lover.
That’s why this year I sent my date pornography. Once over Christmas Break she off-handedly mentioned that she “sort of found Playboys interesting to leaf through.” (Everybody finds naked women captivating, apparently). So last week as I consolidated my plans for Valentine’s Day, I lifted two playboys from a fraternity bathroom. One hour and two dollars later the nudie magazines were in the mail, delivered by the U.S. Postal Service straight to her heart. Nothing says “I love you” like stolen pornography.
—Andrew Heaton is a political science and religious studies junior. His column appears every Monday. He can be reached at opinion@oudaily.com.
See? This man KNOWS women.
To any hot women out there, will you be my Anthimus?
-The Oklahoma Hippy
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