Post your most mortifying Valentine's Day story (250 words or less) in this thread for the Eric Wight competition. The competition ends on February 14th and the winners will be announced on February 28th. Terms and conditions and a list of the prizes can be found over at Whedonesque.com. 

Dante's 8th Circle of Lower Hell, or Valentine's Day, as I like to call it

What kind of depraved Wolfram & Hart Senior Partner wannabe sends
an e-mail directive saying your office will participate in the sentimental ooze fest that is Valentine’s Day? Well, I decided on the way in this morning that I’m not doing it. If anyone asks, I’ll talk backwards like I’m the dancing dwarf in the Red Room: “On, I did ton teg enoyna a enitnelav, rekcufrehtom, os ssik ym ssa.” All day I am stiff-necked with incredulity. I glare as I stalk down the hallways of icky Valentine vapors of goodwill. I try to ignore my co-workers, middle-aged women like me who are whinnying about frilly cards bought for their hunky man-boy office crushes and the insincere Hallmarks (“Yo, have a great day – Chuck in the mailroom”) already deposited in their skanky in-boxes. I manage not to staple anyone’s forehead but by 4:30 p.m., I feel like Harold Chasen picking out a ceremonial knife from the wall so he can commit suicide in front of his “date.” Maybe I’ll stick that knife in my own gut. As I begin my escape for the day, I notice something left on my desk. A red envelope. No writing on the outside. I put it in my backpack and leave, unbelievably feeling a frisson of anticipation. In my car, I take a deep breath and open it. Inside is a coupon for 25% off pizza down the street. Well. Tears of humiliation prick my eyes. Also unbelievable. I hate Valentine’s Day.

Eighth grade. 1985. Do you remember age 13 with greasy hair and crooked teeth? All I really want is for someone to give me a frog valentine that says, “I think you’re TOADally awesome.” But the boys are too busy watching the girls in the cheerleading and dance squads. Why do they have breasts and a reason to actually carry Tampax in their purses? Just this once, let me get my period before school lets out for summer. Remember that thing you did last week that seemed like a good idea? You’re standing in the front yard of your driveway after school. It’s quiet and mostly rural so no one will notice. You grab a very smooth green leaf off the nearest tree and pretend you’re standing in the aisle at Safeway shopping for your very first package of thin pads. “Yes, that will be all, thank you.” The air makes a very convincing clerk. Right there, you delicately unbutton your pants and gingerly place the leaf on top of your panties at the crotch—trying ever so carefully to line up the leaf so it will catch the imaginary blood. Who knew the neighbor across the street (who also happened to have been your third-grade teacher) happened to be watching?

“May-reeeeeeeeeeee!!!! WHAT are you DOING? I’m going to tell your parents!!!” She didn’t and I was 16 before the blood began my womanhood.

I sat in a rented suit, worrying that my mother’s deposit was soon going to disappear at the power of my mighty butt sweat. In my equally sweaty palm sat a box of cheap chocolates littered with my dirty fingerprints. In an act of high school embarrassment my date was on her way to pick me up for my first official Valentines Day.

My mother was as nervous as I was, her son was somehow lucky enough to score a date with the seemingly inaccessible April. I didn’t have the heart to tell her the real reason April picked me amongst the group of drooling fools begging for her attention. Word had gotten around; I was well endowed.

The pressure of what was to be not only my first Valentine’s, but my last night as a virgin had already increased my blood pressure to a rapid rate when our neighbor knocked on the door, entered without waiting for a response, and started complaining about the neighbor, who apparently had left old chicken out that was stinking the area up.

We went outside to investigate, and not finding the source of said stench, we peeked into the window of the man’s home when somebody commented that they hadn’t seen him lately. I saw him first, dead and bloated, with a trail of blood from his head, but the source of the smell was found, and smacked me across the face.

April pulled in, just in time to see me puke.

In the year 2000, I was a student living in the dorms, and the tender age of 19. I had the dreamiest of boyfriends. He played in a band, listened to only the hottest indie groups, and was emotionally unavailable in a way that whispered "Tame me, teach me, help me to remain yours." Valentine's Day was on a Monday, so he volunteered to drive to Columbus and take me out to dinner the Friday before. I spent all day cleaning my dorm room, selecting the perfect outfit, doing my hair and make-up.

An hour before he was supposed to arrive, he called. He wasn't coming. Our relationship? It was over. You see, he was just too free, too emotionally unstable, to be tied down. Like the indie label bands and their scorn for corporations, the label of boyfriend was too mainstream for him.

I cried for hours. My girlfriends said they were going out. I should go too. It would be fun. We'd all get drunk. First stop, a bar. I pulled myself together, humiliated, and we went out.

My girlfriend with a fake i.d. purchased beer for all of us. Two sips in, the cops showed up and did a walk through. They looked at me, and I put my beer down, and tried to walk away. They followed me, and asked for my i.d. I was busted. Tagged for underage drowning of sorrows in beer.

Broken up with, arrested, a criminal record. Valentine's Day of 2000.

Valentine's day. Supposedly about love. or the fantasy of what love should be. Either way, Love the Reality, Love the Ideal and Love the Marketing Tool were all present and accounted for this Feb. 14. I planned to get really drunk. Alone. To protest Love the Reality for not being Love the Ideal and Love the Marketing Tool for cashing in on this fact. Screw the lot of it, I thought.

Alone and drunk in my favorite dive, fate decided to kick me square in the pair. Lila walked in. My ex. The one that cheated on me, dumped me and then moved in with the guy. Still, I never really got over her.

She spotted me, smiled.
“Buy ya a drink, handsome?”
I tried, unsuccessfully, to hide my smitten grin. Seeing her again, all the resentment and heartbreak faded away.

Two drinks later, she said she’d split up with new guy and been thinking about me and feeling bad about how she treated me. Two more drinks, and we were making out in the corner.
“Happy Valentine’s” she said.
“Yeah! It is.”

I excused myself and stumbled to the bathroom.

I came back, head spinning, and saw Lila flirting with the bartender. He scrawled his number on a napkin and handed it to her… then everything faded out.

I woke up in the hospital. Dried puke on my shirt and I pissed my pants. Alone. No Lila… She went home with the bartender.

Worst Love? “Love the terrible delusion”.

Our attorneys apologized profusely, but no other date was available on the docket. My wife sat directly opposite me during depositions, wearing her sexiest dress and waving a single red rose. Protracted views of her cleavage compounded the tangle of thoughts and emotions.

We broke for recess after her request for a restraining order was denied. She walked up while I was getting some fresh air.

“I know this isn’t the best time,” she demurred, “but I wanted to ask you out to dinner.”
“You’ve gotta be kidding.”
“It’s Valentine’s day.”
“So?”
“We’re still married. Can’t we make the best of it?”
“By getting divorced?”
“But it’s Valentine’s day!”
“No.”
“I’ll treat.”
“I said no.”
“Are you sure? After dinner we could… go back to my place.“ She flashed a seductive smile.
My resolve weakened.
“Please? For old times’ sake?”
“I don’t—“
“Don’t end us this way,” she pleaded. “Not here. Not like this. It’s too cruel on Valentine’s day! I’ll do anything!”
“I’m sorry.”
She stormed away in tears.

Her plan was brilliant: Scratch wildly during unusually rough bedplay, scream, knock things over. Then it’s a 9mm heartbreak with the gun in the nightstand. She said; he’s dead. Standard domestic homicide. No police investigation. No charges. No long, messy divorce. In our state she’d still collect the quarter million in life insurance. A denied restraining order on Valentine’s morning? The media would go into a frenzy and pounce on the TV movie rights.

It almost worked.

My meth dealer was supposed to take me out for my first real date in a year and my first real meal in weeks, and then bring me home to screw me silly (TANSTAAFL, you know.) A real Valentine, thinks I! Instead, he stands me up for some 14-year-old cheerleader (I find out a week later.)

So while I’m waiting, the 300lb schizophrenic mother of another dealer friend of mine shows up at my door, screeching that “They” are after her. I let her in, she explains that “They” were her daughters, and proceeds to talk to G-d in my living room for three hours, calling Him names that I simply wouldn’t have the balls to.

Then she declares she has to take a crap.

And since she was still talking to G-d and wouldn’t close the door, I got to spend the next hour and a half listening to what sounded like natural birth and smelled like the abbatoirs of Hell. When I finally dared, later that night, to venture into my bathroom, there was not a single surface that wasn’t heavily splattered with poo. I don’t think she actually sat on the toilet, more dropped her pants in the center of the room and spun around like a Water Weasel.

Finally, about four hours after she arrived, she gathers up her plastic bags full of rags and beer cans and escapes out my back door. (Okay, so I told her “They” were out front. Sue me.)

I'm 22 and have been seeing Bobby for a few months. Bobby--blue eyes, dark hair, careless laugh. Maybe not so much in the talking department, but I'm making adjustments. He makes my knees weak. So I'm thinking, Valentines Day, I'm going to do something really special. I take myself down to Victoria's Secret and blow a bunch of money on pretty red lingerie. Bobby will like that. So different for me, the practical type, I choose my clothes for comfort and durability, but Bobby's worth this trip out onto a limb. So I'm at his house, in the bedroom. I hear him come home, sit down on the sofa. I go into the living room, dressed, put the Rolling Stones Beast of Burden on the stereo (because this is the early 80s), start doing a dance--you can imagine. Off come the outer clothes, I wiggle & gyrate, just like the girls in the movies and Bobby seems to be having a great old time. And then I hear something, behind me in the kitchen. Turn around, mostly naked. It's Dirk. Bobby's friend. The one I don't like. The one who keeps girly pictures on his wall and calls women "chicks" and "broads." He's been enjoying my show, too. He laughs. Bobby laughs. I go home, stripping career over. Throw away the lingerie. And Bobby.