Love, What Is It Good For? A Pleasure Cruise

Lovers will walk the beach and feed each other chocolate covered strawberries. Others will be clawing their own eyes out in a gloomy room with cats and very loud music.

After a serious break-up, Valentine’s Day seems like an eerie trumpet call in a lost battlefield, and I’m fresh off of a long tour.

Sure it’s nice to have a day when love makes the world go round, but the idea of romantic bliss is about as attractive as a cold pizza. Love costs more than a box of chocolates and a dinner at Olive Garden. Love is the cherry on top to the hard-work it requires.

I have spent 1,226 Valentines Days with a girl recently. A few hundred of those days were unforgettable, others might have been days I can live without, but combined, it was what romantic trips are all about.

The frenzy of dopamine in the brain when you first meet your (future) love is nothing short of  addictive, like a new drug in a foreign country. But like any drug that loses its potency after long-time use, breaking up with a once-committed love is like taking that first step toward sobriety.

So what is Valentine’s Day to a recovering love-addict? I can’t answer that, but hope for the best and expect the worst.

Here are my suggestions for love birds:

• Don’t waste your money on balloons, chocolates, and please, no Teddy Bears.
• Don’t fall for the mushy crap.
• For your first date, take your partner to a shooting range for Valentine’s Day and demolish some watermelons.
• Have some real fun and leave the fairy tale stuff for high school kids.