best friend boy

This is something I wrote a few days ago. It was Valentine's Day and I spent the evening taking a Spanish test and grocery shopping.

So many singles get really snarky about Valentine's. While I was shopping I was trying to figure out what I was feeling and reminding myself that I'm supposed to feel bitter because I'm single. Actually, I've got a lot peace and satisfaction with my singleness. It helps to be single by choice...

Last year on Valentine’s Day, I went to dinner at the 510 Restaurant and to the Guthrie to see Romeo and Juliet. My last boyfriend knew I love all things Shakespeare. It was so bad we almost cried trying not to laugh. Probably the most disappointing rendition since a ballet I’d seen several years ago in Michigan.

The last boyfriend was probably one of the best ever. He was incredibly thoughtful and considerate. We dated for 10 very intense months. He lived with me for over 6 of them.

We are almost exactly the same age. He has a degree in English and hates to read. I love to read and never finished my degree in English.

Our first date was at Café Barbette. We took hours eating dinner and drinking a bottle of wine. We were so into each other that we went into St Paul to see my neighbor (who plays the saxophone) play with a band at Arnellia’s. We were there until close and we talked and held hands the entire night. Then he came back here and we talked until 3. We were so into each other that we actually agreed to have a date the next day.

So the next night we went to dinner and to see Big Fish which made me sob like a baby, and me with no Kleenex. I’m not kidding you girls, he handed me an honest to god white linen handkerchief. I think I fell in love at that moment.

We adore so much of the same music. We argued the virtues of various Tom Waits songs covered by other bands (did you know that Rod Stewart, Downtown Train is a TW cover? I didn’t.). I hate reggae; he loathed my Dave Matthews Band cd’s. But we totally agreed on Sinead, The Cure, Joy Division, The Smiths, Portishead, Massive Attack and lyrics were often a topic of discussion.

He liked to figure out how to save the world when he’d been drinking. We had big, long argumentative discussions about it—his growing up in a small farming community gave him a different perspective than I on many things. Unfortunately, he drank too much and too often.

Last year on my birthday I received a bouquet of flowers at work, in a hand painted vase with flowers picked out specifically by him. We had an incredibly romantic dinner at Auriga and then went to the Legendary Pink Dots show at First Ave that I’d been dying to see.