Songs That Sum Up My Worst Valentine's Experience
It would be more accurate to say ‘album’ that sums up my worst Valentine’s experience, and some romantic context would also be helpful.
I fell in love for the first time at the age of five with a boy called Ian Cox. I was in Year One, and I never told Ian how I felt, settling instead for watching him at a distance and hoping some kind of telepathy would kick in, and he would return my feelings. I didn’t happen. I left the school at the end of the year by which time my love had evaporated. I didn’t know then that the die of my love life had been caste. The next boy who had his spell over me was called Paul Beckley. He arrived my new school when he was eight years old complete with his regulation grey shorts, white shirt buttoned up to the neck, and marine blue pullover. He was a complete dish, but once again, I loved him from afar, knowing he could never love me. Girlfriend material I was not.
I won’t bore you with the gory details of my ‘un-love’ life, suffice it to say that the pattern of falling for boys, uniformed or otherwise, continued into my teens. There was Lesley with the big afro, Colin, uniformed and gorgeous and shy Clifford. I had unrequited love down like a pro and could have written a book or vlogged about it if the internet had been invented.
The boys I crushed on barely knew I was existed. I scrubbed up well and my hair was always on point. I had good teeth and a winning smile but always failed to click with would-be paramours.
That said, full transparency, I was asked out when I was eighteen by a boy three years older than me, and though we had great conversations, I’d not noticed him in that way. It seemed like sod’s law to me, but I went out with him. We could have married if he hadn’t taken a violent dislike to Public Enemy.
Colin and I went our separate ways geographically three weeks after our first date, and I embarked on my university career.
And met Carlo.
Carlo was a half-Italian, half-Ethiopian God (the capital G is deliberate). He was charismatic, caring and off-the-charts confident, but not in an insufferable way. One got the feeling that his parents had showered him with love while simultaneously imparting decent values.
I loved Carlo. About a year after meeting with him, we went out for a meal. I screwed my courage to the sticking place and declared my undying love for him. He was sweet, but he didn’t feel the same way. I was quietly mortified, but we remained friends. Not long after I’d bared my soul, I learned that he already had a girlfriend, a fellow Italian with long hair. I chalked it up to experience.
And then along came Ian.
Ian was from Trinidad and joined the university a year after me. We met at the Afro-Caribbean Society and it was love at first sight. For him. He was absolutely smitten with me and didn’t care who knew it. He wore his heart on both sleeves and his trouser legs, and I felt positively haunted. My memory is hazy when it comes to the details, but I’m pretty sure I took to ducking into the student union or Mechanical Engineering Department or campus bookshop whenever I saw him coming. I just didn’t fancy him, and I railed against Cupid who must have found the whole episode hysterical. I’d spent the last fourteen years willing my crushes to love me back, and here was this boy, perfectly nice, perfectly intelligent who would have died for me, and I just couldn’t feel the same way.
My friends in the Afro-Caribbean Society thought it was hilarious and encouraged me to take a punt on him and go on a date, but I refused to buy into the ‘just do it’ school of thought. What harm could there be, they reasoned, in getting to know him? Every harm, I replied, hurt that they could be so insensitive. They failed to appreciate the cruel irony of the serial romantic who is crushed on by a boy she was not attracted to.
I’d never in my twenty years received a Valentine’s card and was thankful that my six years at a single-sex school spared me the humiliation of always being the one left cardless every February 14th. I could only describe Valentine’s Day 1989 as perverse. My so-called friends teased me mercilessly: Ian let everyone who was interested know he was head-over-heels in love with me and a card was a given. I was dreading the day. There was no excitement, no anticipation, no wondering if it the Japanese-American dreamboat would succumb to his desires. No, a card from Ian was a foregone conclusion.
I was down in the dumps in my second year, and a card from some or other nameless hunk would have provided welcome respite from the blue funk I was in. That wasn’t to be though, and on the allotted day, the card arrived with a bunch of flowers. But that wasn’t all. Ian had gifted me with an album by Bobby Brown, Whitney Houston’s ex.
Bobby Brown had split from Jackson Five wannabee boyband, New Edition and made a decent job of his solo career, drugs notwithstanding. I found it hard to be gracious in the face of massive disappointment, but I couldn’t help feeling there was a thinly-veiled message in the title of Mr. Brown’s album. Once again, my friends were highly amused when I told them of my Valentine’s gift, and it was clear their sympathies lay with Ian rather than me. I never played the album, in fact, I gave it away as soon as I could: it was a painful reminder of my brush with love, and I resented the passive-aggressive subtext. It wasn’t my fault it if I didn’t love him. I’d never been one to pretend, and I had no intention of starting.
So, what was the title of this album? I hear you asking.
‘Don’t Be Cruel’ (satisfy your curiosity by clicking the link below)
I kid you not. Googling the album years later, there was no doubt the record was carefully chosen. Just about every song seemed like an accusation of cruelty on my part, from ‘Cruel Reprise’ and ‘Every Little Step’ to ‘I’ll be Good to You’.
There was no fairy tale ending us. I continued to hide from him, and when I couldn’t hide (because he’d crept up on me), I was cheery in the face of his doe-eyed distress. This wasn’t how love should be, but it was how love was for me.
When I look back at my epic second year Valentine fail, I am reminded of the saying, Be careful what you wish for. I’d longed to be loved with an Ian-like intensity, and I got what I’d wished for.
I wonder what he’s doing now. I hope he found someone who deserved his love. And that she wasn’t cruel.
Written by Laurie O’Garro
Laurie has recently come out as a writer of poetry, flash fiction, including her hilarious 'God Monologues', and articles. She has lived in London for twenty-seven years, having moved to the capital to take up her first teaching job.
Laurie's hobby is string art which she discovered off the back of a childhood art from the 70s. The craft is best compared to embroidery, except it's done on card. And it's funkier. Her plan is to go global with string art and turn her creations into clothing and other accessories that people will fall in love with.
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