Page 4 of Not Your Valentine
Mom tsks and tuts over my outfit and hair. It isn’t that she finds me greatly lacking; no, it’s just a thing she likes doing. A way of showing affection.
Baffling to me, but I’m used to it.
We go to the dining room, and she brings us each a small bowl of delicious wonton soup—shrimp wontons, since Bec doesn’t eat pork. No restaurant makes wonton soup as good as my mother’s.
Two Christmases ago, I brought Charlie home to meet my parents. He ate my mother’s soup without complaint but later admitted to me that he didn’t like it. I swear, steam must have come out of my ears when I heard him utter that blasphemy. How could someone not like my mom’s wonton soup?
As I debated whether we could continue dating, he told me that he did not, in fact, like any soup at all. Chicken noodle, clam chowder, pho—no, he didn’t like any of it.
At that point, I should have realized the relationship wasn’t worth saving. Soup is an essential food group, particularly in winter, and I couldn’t comprehend his point of view.
“Are you okay?” Mom asks me. “You look a bit pale.”
I’m not sure if that’s true, or if she’s saying it just as an excuse to feed me extra food.
“I’m fine,” I say.
“What did you do for New Year’s Eve?” Dad looks at me, then Shirley.
“Hung out at Esther’s,” I say.
“Did you kiss anyone at midnight?” Mom inquires.
I give her a look.
“Just curious.” She pauses. “Have you dated at all since Charlie?”
I shake my head, and despite the warmth of the soup flowing through my body, I can feel myself tense.
“Do you need help?”
I choke on a wonton. Shirley laughs, but when I continue hacking, she looks concerned.
“I’m fine,” I croak before anyone can attempt the Heimlich maneuver on me. “You want to set me up with someone, Mom?”
“If you need help finding someone, yes. You’re almost thirty.”
Oh, dear.
My parents haven’t meddled in my love life…yet. They’ve met a few of my boyfriends over the years, and if they’ve had opinions about the men I’ve dated, they haven’t shared them—with one exception. They were pissed at Charlie for the public break-up, and when I later told my mother that he hadn’t liked her soup, she may have uttered a few curse words.
I know they want me to find a life partner one day, but not because it’s a thing you’re supposed to do, a sign you’re a real adult. Rather, as far as I can tell, my parents are genuinely happy together and want their daughters to have that, too. Which, I suppose, is better than wanting us to join them in misery.
Shirley and Bec have been a couple since they were twenty—they’re now both twenty-seven. As I get older, I fear my parents will start making more and more comments about my dating life or lack thereof and—
Crap. They’re giving me looks of sympathy, and it’s enough to make this wonton soup a little less delicious than usual.
But only a little.
I try to ignore them, which of course makes them focus on me even more.
“Charlie was an asshole,” Mom says, “but there are many great men in the world, if you’re certain you only like men. Some people say all men are jerks, but it isn’t true. I’m sure there is one out there for you, and if you want my help—”
“No.” I try not to sound too appalled. I know she means well, but still.
I think Mom assumes that my response means I’m not over Charlie, though this isn’t the case. At all. I’m just tired of the pitying looks I receive because some dude broke up with me, and it went viral, and I haven’t dated anyone in the ensuing ten months. That event disrupted my reassuring routine and normal social interactions, throwing me into some kind of alternate hellscape where everyone—from work acquaintances to neighbors to internet strangers on the other side of the world—felt free to comment on my personal life.
“The problem was him,” she says. “Not you.”
