No Romance.

On being allergic to romance but loving love...

When I was sixteen my German language class went on an exchange trip to Cologne. We stayed with separate families at night and in the days we hung out together taking classes and doing activities. On one of those days we went to a public swimming pool. Was it Valentine’s day? My decimated memory won’t allow this detail but something about the day compelled my boyfriend at the time to acquire a red rose, clamp it between his teeth and swim up to me in the middle of the pool to present it to me, like a dog with a newly fetched stick. Looking back at this scene now, him treading water in front of me with the rose between his teeth, I am struck by how outrageously brave a gesture it was to make in front of a large group of awkward teenagers. But also, what the fuck? No! I was mortified at the time, to the point that I asked my friend to hold the rose for the rest of the day. That was my first indication that the traditional ideas of romance were not ideas I felt particularly comfortable with..

My husband and I stopped ‘doing’ Valentines day years ago. And as for this year, to quote a tweet from the iconic Irish drag queen Panti Bliss,

‘I’m married and I love my fella very much but Valentine’s Day this year can get in the bloody sea’.

Not that those traditional tropes of romance even come into my marriage anymore. I married a Yorkshire man. On asking him about his views on romance for this piece he replied, “it’s bullshit”. But I feel the same. You know what my worst favourite thing is? When you’re out with a couple and one of them whispers in the others ear. Jesus it could make me turn the table over. We don’t do PDAs. We didn’t sit over the dinner table and decide this, it has just transpired over the years that we are not the couple who are comfortable with their hands all over each other in public. I could endure a handhold, but T is too fidgety, he can’t keep his hand still in mine for long before he pulls away. In the mornings we meet in the kitchen and we hug. He rests his head on top of mine. Then he puts a cup of freshly brewed coffee in my hand. That’s the extent of it. But is that enough?

Valentine’s Day brings with it hugely unrealistic expectations of romance and consequently, huge potential for disappointment. Valentine’s day forces us all to hold our relationships under a microscope and do the romance audit. I asked my friends about what parts of their relationships they think are romantic;

“When he unloads the dishwasher.”

“He knows what supplements I need in my smoothies.”

“Knowing what each other’s Deliveroo orders are without having to ask.”

“Having him take control.”

“When he notices my progression at things and compliments me on it.”

"When he puts a hot water bottle in by bed for when I get home after my night shift.”

“Valentine’s = companionship and companionship actually comes from the French words for sharing bread, so I’m quite up for starting a new tradition of Valentine's being a day you can get a really bloody good loaf of fresh bread and eat the lot in one day.”

Now Bread Day I could really run with. That last one is from Liz who says good carbs are her soulmate. I have been trying to remember my soulmates so I can pinpoint some definitive experiences of romance from past relationships. I have searched and searched. I even read my old diaries. Only two memories really stick out.

An ex boyfriend in my early twenties drove us both to the sexual health clinic on his moped after we realised we shared the same STI. No shame. Just grown up pragmatic action. Sitting on the back of his moped as he drove us through Soho felt like the most romantic thing I had experienced to date.

There was a trip to Sardinia. A week long stay in a tiny wooden chalet at a water sports resort. A barbecue with chicken from the local resort shop. I woke up in the morning feeling horrible, only to spend the next few hours violently excreting food and liquid from all ends in the tiny cupboard toilet. When my boyfriend woke he banged on the door but I was slumped against it from the inside, passed out from dehydration. He pushed himself in and pulled me up onto to the toilet, and shouted in my face and I came to and for some reason I couldn’t bear the loudness of his voice. I moaned at him to fuck off. He screamed out the window until a doctor arrived and they lifted me and lay me on the bed and put my feet up and within a couple of minutes I had total clarity. I lay there feeling dizzy and mortified, sipping tepid water, while my boyfriend wiped me clean of all the vomit and shit. Then he cleaned the bathroom.

Romance for me is not about money spent. It’s not about cards or flowers. It is certainly not a heart shaped thing. It’s more of an amorphous blob, taking on different shapes of what thoughtfulness looks like. It’s mopping up sick and liquid shit. It’s taking on STI’s together as a team and then laughing about it lots. It’s definitely not Valentine’s Day.

I told my friend Mary that we weren’t going to do anything this year. No gifts or gestures. Mary told me that she loves Valentine’s Day; it’s originally a pagan holiday celebrating fertility and the onset of Spring. It’s ‘good vibes all round’. Mary grew up with Valentine’s Day celebrating not just romantic love but everyone you love. It turns out that Mary’s Mother held a ‘love’ dinner every year on the day, and used to cut out hearts and put them in her and her siblings shoes, their pencil cases, school bags - with messages written on the hearts ‘we love you, love mum and dad’. Mary has carried on this tradition, and sends Valentine’s to her best pal, her siblings, her wife, and even her wife’s parents. On listening to her, I remembered how much I used to love receiving a card and chocolate from my Dad on Valentine’s when I was a kid. And how I used to love giving him a card too.

And now I’m thinking differently. I was getting it all wrong. Once you take the expectation of romance away from Valentine’s Day it all makes a lot more sense. I can be cynical about romance, but life’s too short to be cynical about love, in whatever schmaltzy or over commercialised way it’s presented. To quote my bread loving friend Liz,

“Chinese Lunar New year, Valentine's, Pancake Day - do the lot! We need every little bit of joy and differentiation we can, however you choose to interpret each particular festival for yourself.“

That’s the lot then. Joy and differentiation. A trip to the STI clinic. An empty dishwasher. A freshly brewed cup of coffee. No expectations. No disappointment. I’ve bought chocolates and a card for T. I will buy the some for my sons too. I have zero expectations of receiving anything back. But that’s grand. I love to love them. Like James Joyce wrote in Ulysses,

Love loves to love love.

Happy Valentine’s Day. Do it your way.

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