A candlelit dinner and dancing is cliched. February is too cold for a picnic dinner on a hill watching the sunset somewhere. And there's usually not enough snow for a good sleigh ride, unless you're willing and able to fork over serious dough.

What's left? You won't find any tips here. Where romance is concerned, St. Valentine's Day separates the men from the boys.

So start thinking. You know who you are.

John B. Trainer '95 is sports editor of The Crimson. We asked him to write because he's a cynic.

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Michael K. Mayo

So, what is it again? There was this massacre, right, and then people fell in love and sent cards, and then there was a clucking bunny and a chocolate egg. Right? Which day is it again?

Who knows. There's plenty written about the lack of love at Harvard, about the measly dating scene and the cold, foreboding social life of Harvard. But what about those of us who have everything we want--everything--and still manage to screw things up?

The most wonderful part of my relationship is the bond that holds us together through thick and thin, the way we boost each other to get through the day:

Sarcasm.

It's a constant nudging and ribbing and teasing, our relationship, 24 hours a day, without fail. So when Valentine's Day comes and the stakes get higher, when signs of true love are due like drafts of a thesis, unless you're paying careful attention, you're bound to ruin something.

Sure, I could be nice to her for a whole day. I could call off the teasing, be nice to her from dawn to dusk, hand her the napkin without pretending to sneeze on it, hold myself back from feigning a sigh when she asks me to sit next to her in the dining hall. I could make her day a perfect Valentine.

Fat chance. Tomorrow is Valentine's Day and I can't tell whether I should send a card or baste a turkey.

Flowers? Candies? Arched eyebrows and professions of love? She'd burst out laughing. It isn't me, and it isn't us.

Maybe it's like the Quaker tradition about Christmas--we should be celebrating Jesus' birth every day, not on one lone day in December. If I stopped teasing her, and if she stopped having the opportunity to look shocked and get sympathy, that would simply mean that every other day of the year I MEANT what I was saying, that I was really wiping my mouth on her napkin and really meant it when I didn't want to sit next to her at the House Grill.