2/14/2020 with perfume bottle from my 20th birthday
I am an inveterate romantic. Dan teases that I weep at Hallmark commercials. He’s not wrong. I am sentimental. I save everything. I have a dried sprig of flowers from my wedding bouquet, pressed into my Bride’s Book.
I have a long memory, for good and bad. Dan can make grand gestures when he chooses to, but isn’t sentimental at all. That sets me up for disappointment.
Dan and I began dating in December, 1972. I was still with Bob, but he would graduate at the end of the month and we were both ready to move on. He got me nothing for my birthday on the 10th of the month, but Dan walked into my suite with a lovely bottle of Madame Rochais perfume. I was overwhelmed. We were soon a steady couple. He graduated in May, 1973, but lived locally.
I went home that summer, worked at an overnight camp in Michigan and we wrote and talked to each other regularly. I needed a car, as I would student teach in the fall, so Dan came to my Huntington Woods home and helped me drive my mother’s car back to school (I bought the seven-year-old Valiant for a dollar).
August, 1973
He worked full-time at a software company in Waltham, officially lived with his parents in near-by Newton (we went there every Sunday night for family dinner) but he came to my dorm room later in the evening and slept over.
One evening in late October, he yammered on and on about “when we are married, we’ll do this. When we are married, we’ll do that”. Finally I queried, “Do you really think we’ll get married?”
That seemed to startle him. Yes, he certainly thought we would wed. “Then why don’t you ask me?!” (He was using the “assumed close”, a term I later learned in my sales career.)
He asked, I said yes; he continued with his plans and dreams.
We became engaged. I got my ring for my 21st birthday on December 10. That is when we told his parents. My parents already knew, since my mother had always told me that if I wanted a June wedding in our temple, I needed to book it a year in advance and it was now only eight months away. My father was an officer of our temple, so I’d called him in October to check out dates. I got an excited letter back addressed to “my darling children”.
“I guess we’re engaged, Dan.” We reserved both Saturday night, June 15 and Sunday afternoon, June 16 (my parents’ anniversary) depending on the type, size and cost of wedding we would decide upon.
I went home for winter break and began planning in earnest. We chose the Sunday date at 1pm; a relatively small event with no sit-down dinner. It is what my father could afford. When I returned for my final semester, I found that many of my friends had also become engaged; we all were so happy for one another.
Valentine’s Day was a weekday that year. I ate in the cafeteria with several girlfriends whose boyfriends or fiancés were older, like Dan, and not on campus. Covert plans had been made by several, in league with some of the other women, to sneak cards under the trays to surprise their girlfriends. Flowers showed up in the dorms. There was lots of happiness and celebrating. I waited for Dan to show up. We were newly engaged and I expected something thoughtful and romantic.
I was disappointed. Nothing came, not even a card. And we were supposed to be young and in love. At the peak of wedding planning and romantic excitement. He just blew past it.
For a guy who had made such an impression 14 months earlier with a birthday present for someone who wasn’t even his girlfriend, this left a bitter taste. He still usually doesn’t make a big deal of Valentine’s Day. I am resigned to it now. It’s just who he is.
But last year, he got me an absolutely gorgeous floral arrangement, as you can see in the Featured photo (with the empty perfume bottle, his first gift, in front of the flowers – I told you, I save EVERYTHING). When he wants to, he knows how to make the grand, romantic gesture. And I truly appreciate it.
Betsy PfauRetired from software sales long ago, two grown children. Theater major in college. Singer still, arts lover, involved in art museums locally (Greater Boston area). Originally from Detroit area.
Very cute “opposites attract” story, Betsy. Usually, I think of this scenario in terms of couples with different political views or neatness/sloppiness issues or disparate spending habits, but you and Dan seem to be on opposite ends of the sentimentality spectrum.
In that regard, I love the examples that you cite: you keeping the dried sprigs from your wedding bouquet and Dan never directly proposing to you. But maybe there is genius behind Dan’s approach. By keeping your romantic expectations generally down, he gets enormous credit those times when he makes the grand gesture. Perhaps we sentimental guys have been doing this wrong all these years.
I suppose that’s one way to look at it, John. I have learned to lower my expectations, it is true. And when he does come through, I am really so happy! Though he usually saves those gestures for birthdays. If you want to read about the grandest ever, there is a birthday story from a long time ago; I think the title is “Getting it to Snow was the Hardest”, or something like that. It happened during my 16 month sojourn in Chicago. I came in to Boston for his company Christmas party (which happened to overlap with my birthday weekend). I used ALL my savings to buy a special dress, I closed a sale just before I flew out that Friday morning, I looked SPECTACULAR (if I do say so…I wanted everyone at his company to have some understanding of why he was putting up with the commute). He had just emptied our joint savings account to buy his first BMW, which pissed me off (of course, he didn’t ask me). We went to LockObers with friends after the party, then stayed with close friends that night (we had sold our Acton condo and he lived with two other guys in Brookline; nice guys, none were good housekeepers), so I was not looking forward to going to the apartment. And we didn’t, On Saturday afternoon, we pulled up to the Ritz (this was 1978…it was still the wonderful, beautiful Ritz) and checked in…into a suite with a working fireplace! He had a dozen red roses for me. We went to dinner in their dining room with a talbe over-looking the Public Garden, and it began to gently snow…SO ROMANTIC! His presents that evening were perfect and thoughtful. It was the perfect evening. As we talked about it, years later, he joked that getting it to snow was the most difficult to pull off. So he has it in him to be uber-romantic.
Betsy , needless to say I’m not surprised you still have dried sprigs from your wedding bouquet and the first bottle of perfume Dan gave you!
And there’s no question we women are more sentimental than the men, altho sometimes it seems Dan does come thru! But hey, we can’t live with ‘em and we can’t live without ‘em. (And funny, but I think they say that about us too.)
Good observations, Dana!
Oh, Betsy…your featured photo should be framed and hung. Gorgeous! I love that you are such a romantic!
Thanks, Barb…dyed-in-the-wool romantic!
Our husbands are similar when it comes to things like Valentine’s Day. When we were engaged, he thought it was a silly Hallmark holiday but I expected “something.” I got a joking Valentine card and cried (so mature). Now, we have agreed to ignore it and feel secure that we love each other and express it in many ways, just not on February 14.
I understand entirely, Laurie. Dan, too, feels it is a manufactured holiday. We do exchanged cards, but nothing else. And don’t do fancy dinners. We honor each other’s birthday.
Thanks for the lovely details, highs, and lows of your Valentine’s Day experiences, Betsy. I confess I’ve not had those highs, but like you, my expectations are reasonably low.
Having been with Dan nearly half a century (gasp), I’ve had my share of both and have come to understand that’s the way it is. But I confess, the highs are really nice!
Love this story, Betsy! You are an unabashed romantic, and that’s great! If only you had married someone who was too. But as you say, you’ve come to understand him, and when he wants to make a romantic gesture, he does know how! Will he read your story?
Yes, Suzy…unabashed! Dan has never read any of my stories. I don’t expect this to change now.
So much of life is about managing expectations and still enjoying the good times without bitterness. Thanks for sharing your stories.
Very true, Khati.
You’ve done a beautiful job of accommodating, Betsy. Loved imagining how you store all the remarkable artifacts you’ve saved over a lifetime. And I can’t imagine you’re a hoarder, so congrats on honoring your own sentimentality. Who better to care for that aspect than you!? Loved your setup > for your post-proposal dormitory Valentines disappointment! Nice job.
Thank you, Charles. I don’t think of myself as a hoarder, but I do have lots of drawers and shelves where I can store all my sentimental treasures.
No, no Betsy! To the contrary, I’m sure you have your past beautifully ordered and secure. I am impressed!
It is true. I am well-organized, as you can tell by my photo collection. I do know where things are and can access things when I want to. I need to confere with Barb. I would love to be able to include a bit of my home movies (from 1954) in an up-coming story, but don’t have the technical skill!