Love is the condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own. – Robert Heinlein

His blue-green eyes stared up into mine, yearning and self-doubt flitting across his regard, that fairy dance of desire and yet-to-be requited love. “Pale eyes, green and blue,” he claimed, “reveal all, bare the soul, expose the heart. Dark eyes,” he said as he glanced in the direction of my own, the color of chocolate, “so cruel, punish with their hidden mysteries, cards held close to the chest.” His gentle look met mine across the table, that tiny wooden table in that tiny wine bar fronting the Seine on that warm summer afternoon. Love confessed over a warm lentil salad left untouched until the words he wished to hear escaped from my lips, my vow made amidst the noise of bottles and glasses, the noise of knives and forks against plates, noise never heard by two lovers caught up in their own tale of love.

The words were uttered, low and nervously, hands sliding across the white paper atop the deep mahogany wood, fingertips brushing fingertips, relief washing across his face and washed down with ruby red wine, the color of our hearts. Words handled carefully like fragile, paper-thin glass figurines that would shatter in a million pieces if dropped, light as air, delicate as porcelain, yet heavy with significance because once whispered these words could never be taken back. I knew that he would grab them up and cling to them and never let them go. They would be his forever. Yet utter them I did because I knew. And he gathered me up and took me home to stay.

“One thing you should know about me,” he declared as I watched him dress, crumpled sheets pulled up to my chin, drunk on love, “you will never receive chocolates from me. I will shower you with gifts, buy you jewelry, fill your arms with flowers, but I will not buy you candy. Chocolate is a vice like cigarettes and alcohol and I will not feed any vice.” And as Valentine’s Day approached he stoutly proclaimed his disdain for this “American holiday, this commercial invention by some ad man or company created for the sake of making a few bucks off of a gullible public.” “And,” he would exclaim, “I certainly don’t need someone else to designate one particular day, tell me when and how I should tell you that I love you! I can do that when and how I please!”

Yet that first Valentine’s Day together a single chocolate heart was placed atop my pillow, with all the care of a newborn babe. One single chocolate heart filled with a thousand words, words that said “I love you” silently yet louder than if he had screamed them from the rooftops. With that one beautifully wrapped chocolate heart he let me know that he understood that this single gesture meant more to me than his contempt for the signs in shop windows and the ads on TV, the French adaptation of this very American celebration. He understood that expectation fluttered underneath my bold claim of agreement with him, my outward expression of disinterest for this special date, expectation fluttering like a schoolgirl’s heart as she places that shoebox decorated with pink crepe paper hearts and white doilies on the altar of her school desk as she silently utters a prayer.

Valentine’s Days have come and gone, 28 of them, to be exact. 28 years filled with roses and tulips, carnations and peonies, stunning jewels and breathtaking adventure. As shop windows fill with pink macarons or heart-shaped candies, boxes tied up in red ribbon or fluffy white stuffed animals dressed up in satin bows, our routine never changes. Grumbles and moans emanate from my man, my lover, the most eternally romantic of souls, at the very first signs of cherubs, putti, Cupids, roses and hearts. He curses, fist shaken heavenward, as the date rolls around. “Why, oh why do the French feel the need to appropriate this silliest of meaningless events? Send this dang-blasted holiday back where it came from! You Americans and your unadulterated nonsense! Am I supposed to fall for this? You really don’t expect to celebrate this with me, do you?” Of course I say no, why bother?

And year in and year out we enter into that great philosophical debate Do we or don’t we? To Valentine’s Day or not to Valentine’s Day? The discussion ensues and I am led to believe by those willing to convince me that this day is no day at all, that if I surrender, give in to the commercial greed and false proclamations of so many admen, I somehow put our love at risk, laugh at the seriousness of the glue that holds our couple together, relinquish our passion to someone else who dares dictate how and when we declare our love. The skeptics surround me on every side, closing in, yet I glance up and smile sweetly, nodding in ostensible agreement all the while dreaming of romance.

Go ahead, just try and convince me. I surrender to your words. Wrap me in your arms and tell me that the day means nothing to you at all, that no one can put limits or restrictions, obligations or rules on the expression of your feelings. Tell me that you desire me every day and you need no one at all to hand you an opportunity to show me just how much. But (just this once) recognize this day with a gift or a sign, no matter how small, just because you know what it means to me, a single sentimental gesture to acknowledge the expectation that trembles within me, and I promise you that in return I will agree with you about the nothingness of Valentine’s Day every single day for the rest of the year.

Marriage is a dinner that begins with dessert. – Toulouse Lautrec