"February was so long that it lasted until March."

Well, here it is: February of 2005. And, on top of everything, it's Groundhog Day no less. There was a column in the New York Metro (that paper they give out for free at the subway in a variety of cities around the world) about Groundhog Day and the groundhog-of-the-hour. Because it's Groundhog Day, that means it's almost Valentine's Day (in fewer than two weeks). So, this combination shall be my theme of today: Nell's repeating romantic flops.

Okay, so not "romantic flops" so much (because that would just be too cruel to all involved parties to tell those stories), but more like "situations in which I find myself." Because I tend to be naive and honest, somehow I've managed to ask people out and get turned down without meaning to do it or even realizing it's happened until after the fact. And "repeating" because that's the theme of the movie Groundhog Day and because this type of thing has happened over and over.

Exhibit 1: Valentine's Day (a few days before, actually) of 2002. I had just been accepted into Delta Gamma, and we were told that we were having a coctail party to welcome us to the sorority. The message I was given was that we were to invite "cute" and "interesting" boys to come to said party. Because I had broken up with my boyfriend less than a week earlier, I had a clean slate and not many options, so I decided to ask "George" who was cute, interesting, and really nice. We got on fairly well, so he said "yes" to my verbal invitation but started acting weird the day before the event, when he received the paper invitation in the mail. This awkwardness continued through the evening of the event when he kind of took off on me. Only later (actually not until the fall of 2003) did I find out that the invitations that went out to the guys billed it as a "Crush Party" and that they had been told that someone in DG had a crush on them--which was the truth, but not my intent at all.

Exhibit 2: Fall of 2002. I had just started my year-off at home and within a few weeks was already bored to tears. Because my mother was having friends over for dinner and I didn't feel like dealing with their questions, I took off for the mall by myself. When I was in FYE, the guy behind the counter said, "Hey, didn't you go to Marshfield High School?" I did, and I recognized him as "Bernie," whom several of my old friends had crushes on when we were in tenth grade and he in ninth. We talked for a bit about mutual friends, and I headed home. When I got home, I called the store and asked to speak to "Bernie." I told him that I was bored at home and that I wanted to give him my number to call me if he ever had plans for which he wouldn't mind my tagging along. Meaning exactly what I had said, it wasn't until long after I got off the phone and a friend expressed surprise that I had done something like that that I realized he must have thought I was hitting on him.

There have been many other circumstances similar to this, but the identities would be a little too obvious, so I'll stop here. I've been told that I have "major balls" for doing these sorts of things, but the truth is that I don't mean to do that. So, if I've ever "asked you out," I'm sorry. I probably didn't mean to do so. I'm not that gutsy.

This year Valentine's Day will be different--better, perhaps. My roommate, Sarah, and I are going to a "couple's glassblowing night" at the local glass store. It's exponentially cheaper than a normal lesson, so we figure we can pretend to be a couple for one night or else we can just say, "Yeah, we're a couple--a couple o' friends."