If there is one thing I learned in my eight years of waiting tables, it is that, when it comes to cooking a steak, the vast majority of restaurant-goers thinks that there is some sort of magical temperature in between medium well and well. And if there is a second thing I learned, it is that Valentine’s Day is, quite possibly, the most dined-out night of the year.
While most people will spend this night waiting in a lobby full of impatient couples and nervous husbands who had forgotten to make reservations, some will spend it quietly at home. Perhaps they could not afford the restaurant’s consolidated yet lavishly priced “special” menu, or they could not find a babysitter, or maybe the preferred alternative is, quite simply, dinner at home - either made from scratch or Chinese takeout - with a bottle of wine and a movie.
And while February 14th can serve as a celebration of the love that exists between two people, for the rest of us it merely marks the midway point of the shortest month of the year. According to those statistics gathered by the U.S. Census Bureau and on which e-Harmony survives, nearly half of the adult population will be spending the forty-fifth day of the year free from the pressures of this Hallmark holiday.
Regardless of what the relationship status on your Facebook profile indicates, you may find yourself on the couch browsing through the Netflix library or standing outside the nearest convenient store in front of the Redbox machine sifting through its available options. If you are like most people today, you may be in the mood for a movie centered around the theme of “love.”
Just like love, movies based on it can come in all different forms. Granted, most of them come in the form of the cliched, formulaic romantic comedy which contains more sap than a ninety-foot tall sugar maple tree. However, there are many that take a different approach and provide a more real - like "seven strangers picked to live in a house and have their lives taped" real - look at love and the joys and pains that come with it.
Below is a glimpse at the assortment of stories and styles that, in my humble opinion, best depict what this day - and the emotion it evokes - is all about. So feel free to check out my list before you and your friends watch Sex and the City, or you watch Bridget Jones with Ben & Jerry for the eighteenth time, or your girlfriend decides that the two of you are spending the night with the ensemble cast of Valentine’s Day (what is that expression about too many cooks in the kitchen spoiling a movie?).