by Carmen Manske

Created on: July 27, 2008

It was my first Valentine's Day with my boyfriend, Zach. I had imagined our day to be fun and romantic, and it turned out to be pretty horrible, and then good again. Let me start at the beginning.
I bought some ice skates from Goodwill. My dad found some men's skates in the musty old garage, and I had cleaned them up for Zach. I didn't know how to skate, but I figured I would be able to learn easily with Zach. He could hold onto my hand, and we would giggle when we fell down. I imagined us like the couples who figure skate on TV, with love songs playing in my head as we glided across the rink.

Then reality hit me. Everything was great that morning. He came over and walked up to me like a knight in shining armor, carrying a bouquet of red roses.
Later, we arrived at the park. I held onto his arm, and looked up at his eyes as we were walking to the rink. I was so happy to be there, at the setting of our perfect date. We sat down on a bench as we put on our ice skates. We smiled at each other, and hugged to get warmed up. It was so cold that day from the biting wind.
I laced up my skates and stood up. Immediately I was nervous, and felt like I had no idea why I wanted to come out there and skate. He got up and took off skating. The skates I found for him were so junky, and one of them was missing the tongue. But he was so fast and great at skating. I didn't even know he knew how to skate. Then he told me that he used to play hockey. I felt like such an idiot standing there with my knees knocking. I thought we were going to learn how to skate together.
He tried to hold my hand, but it wasn't really working. I was going to take us both down on our behinds. So he skated while I stood in the middle of the rink, looking like a baby giraffe that didn't know how to stand.
I couldn't stand anymore because my feet hurt. I couldn't skate back to the bench. So I sat on the cold ice and watched him skate.
He felt bad for me, so he took me by the hand and got me to the bench. Then we got back in the car. I was silent. I was really mad and he could tell. I stayed silent for about 10 minutes. Then he talked and I told him that it wasn't romantic like I expected.
He said that being romantic isn't something you plan, it just happens, that's what's romantic about it. I felt bad that I couldn't enjoy the ice skating. I could have had a better attitude. The rest of the day was wonderful. I was happy to be with him, and I appreciated every moment.

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