I didn’t know what Valentine's Day was until I was in secondary school. My secondary school was a boarding house, so we all lived in a school compound. It was a mixed school with both genders as students of the school. We shared the same classes, the same seats in class, we shared the same sporting equipment, the same dining hall, and even sat together in the dining hall to eat. So, we had a lot of time with the other gender. This made room for people to fall in love, have crushes and admirers and even make moves and have girlfriends and boyfriends at that early age.
During the season of Valentine's, boys will leave love notes for their girlfriends, their crush or their admirers, whichever is right with them. It was mostly the times when boys profess their feelings to girls, and some confident girls also shot their shots, during this time, boys will snick out of the school just to get gifts for the girls they loved or admired, some of the boys who were not stubborn enough will give money to the bold ones to help them get gift in the town, it was a time for business for the bold and brave boys, they charge the girls more because it was more risky for the girls to leave the school and exists were not granted easily. Since the only benefits for the boys then were the money they could get from the trade, and the opportunity didn’t come very often, they took advantage of the situation and milked as much as they could for the time.
I and my friend who were sit mates were always shy of girls, we hardly had conversations with them, we will try to avoid face contact with the other gender at all times, I could remember countless number of girls that had eyes for the but of us, but we were not giving and the girls didn’t want to be disgraced for making any attempt, I even remembered a time where one of the girls in my class during my junior school days which I had a crush on and she also had a crush on me wanted to talk to me but I didn’t answer her out of pride and ridicule that I was going to get from my friends, and the next term she left the school, till date, I have this regret of not hearing her out and wonder if it was because of what I did to her that made her leave the school.
Valentine's gift started with small gifts. I could remember my friend then who gave his girlfriend “Titus” sardine during the Valentine season, but she gave him nothing in return, we then composed a song for him and to date, we sing the song to him. Others went with just writing short love notes and buying rose flowers with a Valentine’s card for their girlfriends, crush and admirers, while others took them on a date to the school shop to buy them lunch. The school was usually loud during this period. At the time we were in senior class, it became a competition amongst girls to see who got the best gifts. Guys were going all out just to impress their girlfriends and admirers. They were guarded not to have another boy take their girlfriends because the other boy bought a better gift than what he could offer to his girlfriend as a Valentine’s gift.
To me, Valentine’s Day is just another normal day, aside the fact that I’m not really a romantic, I have never been good at gestures, I am also a terrible gift giver, most time, I prefer just giving the person the physical cash I intend to spend for a gift for the person to get whatever he or she wants for themselves rather than going through the stress of choosing what to gift a person. Love to me is an everyday thing, I don’t have to look for a day to express my love to my love, I can express myself at anytime which should always be rather than wait on society to tell me that it is time to show or express how I feel about another person. It should be an intentional response to the everyday life of two lovers. I have not had a valentines present before or have given any before, even as I don’t believe that love should be decided for me when to express it, I do long to have an experience with the Valentine’s date and gifting someday.
