happy surreal valentines to you too

So it's valentines day, horrible manufactured bane of single peoples existence everywhere. I'm ignoring it myself, plus I have either the beginnings of a miserable cold or some new death inducing virus. Or so I said all day. Then, the love of my life, my unrequited utter love, otherwise known as my friend D, said, let's go for beers after work. So of course I did. And we ended up at Hannah Flanagans, or Flanna Hanigans.

Horrible bar as always, we had 3 pints & were working our way into our usual cynical self pitying artsy etcetera when a guy in full tux comes over. It's my old friend J (not to be confused with, like, my 5 other friends J.) who is this guy who got 86ed from Broadways some time back, but was my alcoholic drunken guy to kiss at 2:00 am. Back in the day. And before I was dumb enough to give him my phone number and he started calling me regularly at 2 am. Which eventually led to me shaking him completely from my life, thanks in large part to yet another friend J, who was kind enough to completely run with the scenario when we ran into J the drunk on the street and I grabbed friend J by the elbow and introduced him as my fiancee.

Well tonight, there was drunk J, all dressed up in a full tux. And he came over to me at the bar and said, Happy Valentines Day Felicity. And I said, Happy to you too J. And he put on white gloves, reached into his bag, and gave me a meticulously wrapped small box with two chocolate covered cherries inside it. He had, of course, a stash of them, and of course, he was thinking he'd get laid for this stunt, as he was handing them out to every girl there. And I hope he does.

Because that, other than the at best bittersweet feeling of drinking with a guy you love madly who likes you only as a friend, is the nicest most Valentines thing that maybe has ever happened to me. Even if it is one of those grand alcoholic gestures with nothing behind it - it's a grand gesture, and I admire it. And him.

He wasn't half a bad kisser either.