By Ron O’Clair

It seems to me that Valentine’s Day is one of those holidays that appeal to the young, the young at heart, and to the romantic among us older generations.

Over the years I have had a number of Valentine’s that were dear to my heart as February 14th came around that year, and I would send a card to let them know how I felt about them.

I am in my early fifties, and I am not too old to have feelings of romance in my heart, and my new Valentine is my Internet sweetheart, Renee. We have not been chatting very frequently lately since I no longer have in home Internet service. That problem will take care of itself as I recently ordered Verizon Internet, and should have it by the time this article gets published, whereupon I intend to resume my Internet romance without delay.
Renee is a wonderful, kind, and considerate person who just happens to be beautiful besides, at least I think so anyway. We have told each other many of our most precious thoughts, and find that we like the same things in many respects.

I hope that the relationship grows stronger day by day, and that we end up having a real romantic relationship sometime in the near future, so this year, I will be sending off a Valentine’s Day card to her, and I hope that she agrees to be my Valentine.
This reminds me of the time I was falling in love with a longtime friend who happened to move into the building I manage some years back. We started to have a romantic relationship, and I had already bought a gift, a card, and some candy intending to present it to what I thought was my one true love that year.

We had been intimate the night before, and as I was in the process of removing the snow that had fallen overnight from the sidewalks as is my responsibility as the building superintendent some guy comes and yells up to the girl who I will call Wendy for the purposes of this story (Name has been changed to protect her feelings).

I did not at first find this to be disturbing because I trusted that we had an arrangement between us that was exclusive, or so I thought anyway. So I continued my snow removal duty without thinking anything was wrong with the situation, other than the fact that she invited him up which was in violation of the “No Visitor” policy in effect.

I assumed that because we had been intimate, she felt that she could flaunt the household rules about not having visitors. Little did I realize that while I was busy removing the accumulated snowfall, she was getting busy with this new guy who apparently was in recovery from alcohol and drug dependency and living at the Salvation Army on Cambridge Street. No job, a precarious foothold on sobriety, and an iffy future prospect of remaining clean and sober, and this is what she wanted to hook up with instead of me.

While I was working my butt off to clear the sidewalks of this and the other two properties that I am responsible for, this new guy was courting what I felt to be my girl.

You can’t force someone to love you, and apparently she wanted this guy more than she wanted me, as from that day forward we were through. There was a battle about my enforcing the “No visitor” policy, and I did not do it out of spite, but as I explained it to her, if I allowed one person to have a visitor, I had to allow all the tenants to have visitor’s, and in no time at all we would have descended back to a house full of crack heads and junkies, which it had been before I became the building superintendent.

I was heartbroken, and I ate the candy myself rather than give it to her.

We stayed friends throughout the process, and many years later she admitted to me that she wished that she had kept me instead of what she got.

Normally I make it a rule to not get involved with any of the tenants in a relationship, and broke this rule due to the feelings in my heart. That technically was the first and only time I broke that rule, my relationship with “Mary” not counting because it took place just prior to my becoming the building superintendent in June of 2003.

I justified getting involved with “Wendy” due to my having known her prior to her moving in for many, many years. Really though, I should not have gotten involved with a tenant in my official capacity as the building superintendent.

This year I am pinning my hopes on “Renee”, my Internet sweetheart. Even though the holiday is for the young, you are apparently never too old to have a sweetheart that you want to be your Valentine.
I have been inherently unlucky when it comes to love. It is hard for me to express feelings of love due to the many times over the past that I had been hurt when I dared to declare my love for someone else.

Perhaps this Valentine’s Day will be different, and I will have my Valentine throughout the coming year, time will tell.
If you liked my story, or you hated my story, I would appreciate your input at: Ronaldoclair@Hotmail.com