Friday, February 16, 2007

A (mostly) successful Valentine's Day

The nice thing about having more than one boyfriend, plus a few more potential boyfriends, is that one gets to exchange lots of sweet Valentine's Day wishes :-). The only downside is worrying about whether one can keep all the guys happy at the same time!

For many years now, myself and boyfriend number 1 have agreed not to buy each other Valentine's Day presents, but instead to go out for dinner in the evening with each other to a top London restaurant. This year however, we decide to stay at home and entertain ourselves. Valentine's Day meals in London restaurants tend to be overpriced given that the huge demand often results in mediocre service and food. So keeping boyfriend number 1 happy this year was relatively easy because I knew that he would assume that the 'no presents' rule was still in place. With a box of chocolates to give him in the morning, Whatever anyone says, I am a very romantic guy :-) and a plan to get him some flowers in the evening, I don't see what more an adoring boyfriend can do :-).

Boyfriend number 2 was a bit harder to sort out. We live in different countries, although we're constantly in touch by e-mail, and we talk to each other once or twice a week too. I decide to make an effort with a special Valentine's Day e-mail. The day before Valentine's Day I take an especially cute photo of myself and arrange for the photo to arrive in his inbox at 12:01am on Valentine's Day in the country where he lives. And as I'd hoped, when I get his reply it turns out that he loves the effort that I made :-).

Boyfriend number 3 was harder still in once sense, although easier in other ways. Like me, he has other men in his life, and he doesn't want the main man in his life to find out about me. So even sending him a txt msg is a risk. If he's with his main fella when a txt msg arrives he'll be angry. And he usually doesn't like presents either, in case questions arise about their origin. In the end, I decide to risk sending him a simple "Happy Valentine's Day" txt msg during business hours when he's likely to be on his own. And within two minutes, I get a happy reciprocal message. Mission accomplished :-).

With my main guys happy, I decide to sent three further simple "Happy Valentine's Day" txt msgs to some of the other men in my life. My gorgeous Japanese masseur gets one, the cute Chinese guy gets another, and the third goes to a wonderful guy who I met in mid January who I haven't mentioned here before. It takes my gorgeous Japanese masseur a couple of hours to return the compliment (probably because he was sleeping in late as usual!) but I receive sweet txt mgs from both the other guys within a couple of minutes of sending them mine! Everything seems to have worked out fine :-).

The rest of the day isn't quite as successful though. The planned lunchtime liaison doesn't work out, which leaves me feeling mildly frustrated during the afternoon. And then there's my plan to buy flowers in the evening for boyfriend number 1.

While buying the flowers, there's a difficult decision to make. Boyfriend number 1 is very keen on local produce, and is always complaining to me about the environmental damage that must be caused by the aircraft transport of agricultural goods which could instead be produced locally with negligible environmental impact. But the Kenyan roses look much better than the other roses available at the flower shop, and are much better value too, so I decide to take a risk.

"What have you got there :-)," boyfriend number 1 asks me with a smile on his face as I walk though our front door.

"Happy Valentine's Day again," I say beaming a smile back at him.

"Awww," he says appreciatively, "with chocolates in the morning and flowers at night you're spoiling me! Are they Dutch or Kenyan?"

What? Dutch or Kenyan?? Why doesn't he think they're English? If I was being given flowers I'd naturally assume that they haven't come that far, and it would certainly never occur to me that they could possibly have come from as far away as Kenya. But boyfriend number 1 is an expert in this area, so I guess I should have known better! He spots the guilty look on my face.

"Hmmmm," he says, "well I won't ask then :-(. Just don't do it again!"

8 comments:

Will said...

Good heavens, man, you're a piece of work, as my maternal grandmother from Liverpool would have said. All those men, all that forethought, effort, discretion, and inventiveness. Keeping a harem's a full time job! :-)

I hope YOUR Valentine's Day was fun, rewarding and full of love.

muse-ic said...

nice and inexpensive - i'm a hater of the overboard variety.

hope you enjoyed your evening.

Monty said...

I must say GB, your organizational skills are second to none! Highly impressed by your attention to detail. Hope you had a great VD!

close encounters said...

very impressive ... i thought of you and your boyfriends on valentines day, and wondered how you would be managing them !

you put all the thought into pleasing them ... did they do likewise ?

Anonymous said...

haha. happy valentines day
:) to u and ure men.

Anonymous said...

but really... Kenyan roses??
As #1 said, don't do it again!

Anonymous said...

I think you did rather well. They're all very lucky.

Alan said...

How do you manage to juggle all of these men ? It would make my head blow up - I find it hard enough with one bloke on the go never mind 3.

The simple answer to Valentines day is to say "romance is dead - it was bought in a hostile takeover by Disney and Hallmark and sold off peice by peice"