WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2006
opinion
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN 5C
Glendening's GUIDE TO GETTN' LUCKY
Valentine's Day is, unofficially, the craziest day of the year. As dawn breaks, the country erupts in blissful glee and people all around are flooded with flowers and candy.
Gifts are traded throughout the day until everyone's broke. Then, in a crazy drunken fury, everyone desperately tries to hook up. It's so great! I'm serious. If you hate wearing clothes and would like to take part in the biggest party of 2006, leave your bed and follow this guide:
Start preparing for this day at least a week in advance. First, call someone and set up a date for this special evening. Then make dinner reservations for two at a local eatery. The darker and more expensive, the better
If you're really crafty, or poor, you can bring the restaurant home and woo your mate with some ramen noodles or filet mignon, whichever's easiest for you.
It's prefectly alright to skip dinner because all anyone really wants is flowers and candy. Anything sweet will work. And again, the more expensive the better.
The same goes for the flowers, but if you time it right, the local cemetery will have a fine selection of flowers for the bargain hunters. A note on finding the perfect floral arrangement: In the past, roses worked best for this occasion. Plus, they're fun because different colors mean different things! Choose red to say "You're hot," pink to say "You're mediocre."
When the day arrives, shower your date with gifts, and if you're feeling nice, take your date out to eat. The specifics of the date or the gifts are not important. The important thing is charm, so smear it on. Remember, everyone wants to feel beautiful, so find an attractive quality and tack on an adjective. Try this:
["Insert name], your [hair/body/eyes] is/are so [amazing/incredible/protruding]."
You can even lie if you want. Just keep it going because it's important to seem sincere.
As night falls, head back to your crib
for some refreshments, making sure to keep your date close. It's important to suggest affection at this point so that no one gets surprised or embarrassed. Body contact, such as holding hands or an arm around the waist, ANDREV EDIT
Get close and try to keep a conversation going because silence is awkward as hell and now is a bad time for awkward.
Try to give your shack a warm, inviting glow with some low-level lighting. The soft light of a candle will give your pad a more comfortable feeling, and less like a dungeon. You can also enhance the mood with music. If you've never tried music in the bedroom, give it a shot.
If you don't like music with sex, you may have some kind of morbid grunting fetish. In that case, head over to the anthropology department because I think they're looking for you. Make sure not to allow the music to drown out everything else. Music is just another element for your partner to enjoy.
The evening should start to add up by this point with the gifts, the dinner, and a little Postal Service playing in the background. If you're still having trouble making the end result painfully obvious, you should offer a massage. All you have to remember is to move into it slowly and read your partner. Body language will tell you everything you want to know.
Have fun. Experiment. Snap candid photos with your cell phone and hit me with some pictures. Remember that Valentine's Day is a day of love, so get out there and love someone.
Andrew J. Glendening is a Westmorland sophomore in English