Column: Valentine’s, Undefined

Josh had a weekly radio show and was part of a touring improv troupe. I had his name saved in my phone with the octopus emoji.

When I think of him, I often picture him telling me he knew how to do a gun trick straight out of an old Western film. I cringed at first at this dorky boy, whose bedroom I’d wound up in once again, but he pulled out two prop guns from a film shoot and proceeded to spin them dexterously and point them straight at me.

I fell on the bed laughing as he kissed me hard. Something pleased me about this tall, messy-haired boy joking about his gun skills in an exaggerated accent. He went to American University and was a respite from the policy world I was part of during my time in Washington, D.C. He also turned 21 on Feb. 14. And I hadn’t been single on Valentine’s Day since I was 16.

I’m writing this column not in celebration of the gray zone, but in acknowledgment of it. The common Valentine’s Day image is a dichotomy between sad, single people and happy couples. Most young people know it isn’t so black and white — so many of us are also somewhere in the middle. Last year, those people were Josh and me.

On Valentine’s Day morning, I thought that 2016 was the year that would break my cycle of romantically committed but nonetheless boring Valentine’s Days. The Hallmark cards were getting to me and the culture of “don’t catch feelings” was keeping me at an arm’s distance from Josh, whom I had met about three weeks before.

Josh and I didn’t talk about our pasts much. We talked about our everyday stresses and our friends and family, but often ended our conversations doing strange things or Saturday Night Live impersonations. He mentioned once that he transferred colleges after following an ex-girlfriend out to California, only for her to leave him. As for what he knew about me, he followed me on Instagram, so I assumed he knew I survived cancer. His pick-up line on Tinder was terrible, but it made me laugh.

It was all a bit weird. But for the first guy since my serious ex-boyfriend, I was quite all right.

On Valentine’s Day morning, I texted my friend who was also in a situation that had not yet DTRed (defined the relationship). As our hangovers from Feb. 13 faded away, we met each other at the local CVS Pharmacy. Pitying ourselves, we threw caution to the wind, ignored that the prices would be slashed in half in 24 hours and bought all the candy we could think of.

Dahlia bought multiple boxes of Red Vines, and I stocked up on Cadbury, Hershey’s Cookies ‘n’ Creme candy bars, Haribo Happy Cola gummi candies and Reese’s. We sat grinning and giggling over the study table in my apartment building, quietly anxious about boys but writing essays and popping chocolates in our mouths as if we were the ones to invent the single-ladies-on-Valentine’s-Day stereotype.

Occasionally, Josh would send me text updates about his family birthday situation. He invited me for drinks after dinner. “I guess I have a Valentine’s date?” I said to Dahlia.

He picked me up and drove me to a quiet bar with a theme somewhere between the Antebellum and Prohibition periods. It was his first legal drink, and neither of us had acknowledged that he’d invited me — whatever I was to him — to this relatively memorable occasion. Even if he was just looking for company, that was OK with me.

It was Valentine’s Day, after all. I got buzzed on a strong gin and rosemary cocktail as our knees touched under the table. I wished him a happy birthday in a soft voice. It started to snow outside.

As we drove home, listening to ’80s ballads and ’90s R&B, something about the day and the snow and the rosemary gin started to remove me from my inhibitions. I stopped caring for a couple hours about whether I was “catching feelings” or not.

He offered me a birthday cupcake when we got to his apartment and I threw my anxieties aside, taking the one with a chocolate chip cookie on top. I giggled because he ate two and for a couple of hours we watched YouTube videos of raccoons and some It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia together.

I started to get sleepy, and as we quieted down, somewhere around midnight, he whispered in my ear, “Happy Valentine’s Day.”

Josh and I never became anything more. But for that day we were able to take away the pressure of both Hallmark romance and casual college dating culture. So I smiled and said it back.

“Happy Valentine’s Day, Josh.”

Emma Andrews is a senior majoring in international

relations. Her column, “Before & After,” typically runs on Fridays.