 Last year I celebrated Valentine’s Day, which is a special day. On this special day, it is essential for every couple to celebrate with flowers, chocolate, candlelight, and other romantic gesture because it is celebrated once a year. Honestly, I didn’t face any embarrassing situation. — Anonymous  Once I was in a long-distance relationship with a man. It hadn’t been long and I was getting to know him little by little. But I came to know him well on Valentine’s Day. We fixed our first date at a restaurant. When I reached, I found him waiting for me with flowers, chocolate and gifts. I felt that he really cared for me. We sat together and talked for a while. Then he asked me for his gift and I handed him a self-made card wrapped with love, which I had made for him staying awake till midnight. He didn’t even look at it properly and also didn’t bother to thank me. I was shocked by his response. Shamelessly, he told me that he had been expecting something more expensive and classy. He said that it was of no use to him. He saw neither saw the effort I put into it nor the love I had showed. I felt very embarrassed, not because I couldn’t please him or give him something of his level, but because of the worst choice that I had made in life. — Suvechha Dahal, Malepatan-5, Pokhara  Like other couples, I had also planned to spend Valentine’s Day with my beloved. I had made a lot of arrangements to surprise him. But when he came to meet me, he cast doubt on my relationship with my best friend — we were so close that anyone would doubt that. My beloved came to the conclusion that it would be better to end the relationship with me. I tried my best to change his mind but he didn’t care about me and my feelings. I was so upset and I told about the incident to my best friend, who promised me that he would sort out all the misunderstanding. The next day, my beloved called me and apologised for doubting me and promised me not to embarrass me in the coming days. — Prakriti Ghimire, Masbar, Pokhara-7  I have never celebrated this wonderful day, not even once in my life. However, this time I’m going to celebrate it, though not in a special manner. I have seen this as a golden opportunity and will not let it go for certain. I have already thought about how to cash in on it because I have already found a girl to whom I can propose. This time I will make sure that I will propose to her with an attractive piece of bouquet which I think she will certainly accept because girls always love flowers. So I hope this special day will be a memorable one for me. — Pratik Shrestha, Buddhanagar, Baneshwore  Couples express their love, care and affection more on Valentine’s Day towards each other. There are many lovers who express their love secretly, whereas others express it publicly even embarrassing others with their activities. In the name of Valentine’s Day, they perform romantic gestures that may be good for them, but other people around may feel awkward. I have faced such awkward situations. I felt so embarrassed that I can’t even express it — I could neither leave that place nor sit there. I wanted to talk to them but I didn’t want to ruin their beautiful day, so instead of arguing with them, I left that place. I think we should ask ourselves once before performing any acts — is it acceptable or not in the public? And think twice before doing any such act. — Pooja Gurung, Pokhara  This is going to be my Valentine’s Day with my beloved. Care and affection is must in any relationship. The way of expressing love to dear ones may vary from person to person which matters a lot. One can easily convey their love through different media like email, messages, Facebook and it is a difficult task to express verbally in front of your beloved. Everyone’s dream is to make it something special or something grand, but in reality that does not happen. As far as I am concerned, before expressing my love to her, I had thought about the most romantic way to propose to her for the whole night, but when the time came to express my love, I was nervous and conscious and the words I wanted to say went out of my mind. Nothing more was said except ‘I love you’ and I thought ‘Oh shi*t!’ How heroes in films express love to their heroines happens only in films. If a person really loves someone, he/she must not try to copy others. Express love in your own way and in your own words and never feel embarrassed about it. — Prem Chaudhary, Tyanglaphant, Kirtipur  For me love and romance are the most beautiful things that I have ever experienced. Although Valentine’s Day has made love formulaic and corny, it is really the source of embarrassment for me. For any sustainable relationship, mutual understanding and cooperation are a must to take care of each other. Every year Valentine’s Day comes and goes, but proposing a lover on a single day to spend whole life means keeping self in the cage of dissatisfaction. So, this tradition of Valentine’s Day with formulaic proposal is the source of inadequacy for me. — Mamata Poudel, Malepatan, Pokhara-7  It was the evening of Valentine’s Day. We were headed to Sarangkot on a bike to celebrate our fifth love anniversary. But all of sudden, the flashes of light from a truck blurred my vision and I lost my balance as well as control of my bike. When I was conscious, I was on a hospital bed, all wounded and bleeding. Experiencing the pain from the cuts and bruises, I ran out in tears looking for her. And I was notified that she was in a coma! From that day, I am living as a walking corpse reminiscing every moment spent with her and praying from my wheelchair that she would soon return to consciousness. — Deepak Adhikari, Lakeside, Pokhara-6  Love needn’t be demonstrated through chocolate, flowers, cards and other romantic gestures. But it became an important part of Valentine’s Day for most of the couples and somehow it looks kind of wonderful. But sometimes, it becomes formulaic and corny turning to be an embarrassment to someone. It was same in my case too. It was on the cold morning of 2014 Valentine’s Day — I had arranged all the things to steal an energetic smile from her to make our day special. But unluckily, all my energy turned to waste as she got embarrassed by all my romantic gestures. No sight of her priceless smile and my expectations remained dreams. I tried to find out why she didn’t like my surprise; we clarified things out while inspiring her to love what she has and not to be worried about what she doesn’t have. Gradually my effort paid off turning the day into a special one. — Urgyen Tsering Gurung  An incident took place four years ago which left me embarrassed in front of my parents, courtesy my friends. I used to chat with a girl on Facebook and my friends knew it. My friends and I had exchanged our passwords and used to chat with girls from each other’s account. One day a friend played a prank on me. He opened my account and proposed to her on Valentine’s Day saying all nonsense — I didn’t give any value to it. After I checked my account the next day, I went to my uncle’s house. To my misfortune I had forgotten to log out and my parents opened my Facebook and saw all those nonsense and thought it was me who has done it. When I returned home the next evening, mum was furious and asked what were all those nonsense on chats. For a moment I was afraid that they might have seen the dirty jokes in our group chats. I got such a scolding that a chill ran down my spine and I felt like I was having diarrhoea. I went to my room and deleted that conversation and even blocked her. Mum also added that dad was upset with me. I was so ashamed that I didn’t face my father for a week and the matter faded on its own. But now I feel like I should have confronted my father and revealed all the details. — Aashish Adhikari, Pokhara  Early in the morning of Valentine’s Day, my friend telephoned and asked me to check my Facebook account immediately. As soon as I logged in, my eyes went wide with shock and surprise seeing myself tagged to a status by a boy of my class, who was a very good friend of mine, expressing the feelings that he had for me. To my dismay, so many people had liked and commented that it made me feel even more awkward, astonished and anxious. Honestly, I do like him and respect his emotions since we were close friends, but his stupidity was too ridiculous that embarrassed me a lot. — Shajina Gurung, Pokhara  At the end of every week, I was getting chocolate from my girlfriend. One day we were discussing on the topic of Valentine’s Day. She didn’t know about it and I was shocked to know that. I told her everything about it after which she told me that I would get a surprise on February 7. I was so excited that I told my friends of this and they were excited too. On the morning of February 7, she presented me with a wrapped gift and requested me to open it in front of my friends. I was glad that I was getting a gift from my girlfriend. I opened it and I got a shock — it was a lollipop. My friends made a joke out of me — I was so embarrassed in front of them. But it was a joke from my sweet lover for me. After that I got beautiful roses, full of love, from her as it was Rose Day. — Dipendra Sah, Kalaiya-10, Bara  Every lover wants romance and to express more love on Valentine’s Day. I also wanted to express my care and love on that day to that one person. So, I made a plan to meet my best friend Rohan. We met and I gifted him a beautiful watch printed with the words ‘I love you’. He took it negatively — he threw it and went home. This hurt me and I cried. Later I came to know that February 14 was the death of his mother whom he loved more than himself. That day he had come to meet me to share his pain and sorrow and to spend some time with me to forget his mother who had died in an accident. I felt guilty after knowing the truth and made a promise not to make others unhappy and understand other’s feelings too. — Anonymous  I remember the first time I gave my girl a surprise gift — it was a glass bangle. She didn’t say anything and accepted that gift. As time went on and our bond got stronger, she told me that she had not liked that bangle though she had kept it safely in her collection. Later, as time passed I found out that she didn’t like surprises at all. She just kind of narrowed down her terms of satisfaction making it impossible to satisfy her needs. The happiness from a surprise never existed and I never gave her any surprises. — Saroj  It was February 14 last year that I got to know the dark side of reality. Everything was well managed, I had roses, card, and I somehow had managed to prepare some fancy lines but was never prepared for the worst. She was coming to me looking a bit shocked but happy. We were parallel to each other and the only thing between was a four-lane road. She was about to come to me when life had something else planned for us — all of a sudden a car came rushing and hit her; I could do nothing but let my love bleed to death. — Arjun Giri, Pokhara  I have never been embarrassed on Valentine’s Day because I don’t have a boyfriend and I have not celebrated this special day yet. So I have no idea about such experiences but I have seen my friends who have felt bad when they cannot give huge gifts to their partners. — Subhamitta  I have faced such an embarrassing moment during my Plus-two years. I had a crush on my classmate from the very beginning days of our college. I used to chat, call and share notes just to be close with her. Days passed and we were used to it and she even knew that I had a crush on her. People started gossiping that we were in a relationship which we never were. As we were close till our last days in our colleges, I started worrying about losing her because after college I didn’t know where she might go. And finally on the last day as every student of the class who were present on that day were told to give last words on their two-year journey, I was fully prepared for it. I had even written it the day before. I had to share words on my two-year journey among friends and with all courage I proposed to her on that day saying “With no regrets, I love you…” I start to feel embarrassed every time when I remember that day. — Anonymous  It was Valentine’s Day and I had planned a date with my beloved. Both of us agreed with what we had. It would be a candle light dinner. I was really happy about that. We were thinking to get there by nine but I went there a few minutes early. I didn’t want to be the one late. But that night, she never showed up. I waited there till midnight but she never appeared. I tried to get to her via my phone and social media but she didn’t respond to any. When it was midnight, a waiter had to ask me to leave because they were about to shut down. Then I went out to a stop and got a bottle of liquor and crashed at my place. The next day I found that she went out with the some other guy and had made love with him. So, I dumped her and started to move on. — Ananta Parajuli, Pokhara  Chocolate, roses, candlelight dinner and a beautiful gift for her — world famous rituals of romance that would never go wrong. But sometimes it does go wrong, especially if the receiver feels embarrassed, confused and uncomfortable with the situation. If I encountered such a situation, it would be best not to over-speak or indulge in formalities that kill the moment’s beauty. A graceful smile and few words of gratitude would suffice. — Nerinav  When I first learnt of Valentine’s Day, flowers had no meaning and chocolate, cards, candlelit dinners, even ice creams were beyond my financial capacity. Nobody had heard of it in my family or ward or even in other parts of Kathmandu. But I must say that my first Valentine’s Day in New Delhi, India with my first girlfriend from distant Fiji was something that will stay in my mind forever. I had sneaked into her hostel room — boys were not allowed in and lo, she exposed her body which I was least expecting. Having never seen silky undergarments with strings, let alone what they held, I almost fainted shivering with fear and soaring nervousness. Needless to say, my Valentine was not impressed at my timidness and she started avoiding me like the plague. Once or twice I bumped into her, but firmly clasped in a creepy macho’s arms. Licking my wounds, I learned the important life lesson the hard way. A few months later I got another girlfriend who appreciated the physical distance and Indian toffees more. — Manohar Shrestha, Kathmandu QUESTION OF THE WEEK Some people say — Idea is Everything. They cite Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg as examples of men with brilliant ideas who went on to become successful. Then there are those who say — Money is Everything, arguing that without money one cannot be successful. It is money that makes an idea a possible reality; without money, an idea — as brilliant it may be — remains just that — an idea. What do you think is more important for success — idea or wealth? Why? ­Send your replies in not more than 200 words by Friday, February 17, 2:00 pm to Features, The Himalayan Times, e-mail:  features@thehimalayantimes.com