New Year’s Eve Is Just Another Night
I really hate to be an I-told-you-so. But I told you so. I told you not to raise your expectations too high for the holidays. I told you not to treat Christmas/Hanukkah as the litmus test for your relationship. I told you not to secretly wish for an engagement ring and be disappointed with anything less.
And New Year’s Eve? Haven’t I been saying for years that it’s just another night and not an especially important one? It’s prom night for adults: a chance to wear fancy clothes, spend a lot of money and pretend to have a good time.< But do you listen?
Christmas/Hanukkah
May: “I met Nick just after Thanksgiving. We began dating and of course, when Christmas came around, we decided to exchange gifts. Since we’d known each other only a month, it was hard to pick and choose gifts that said, ‘I like you’ but did not go overboard in our expression of affection. I asked him what he wanted and he said a belt. I had noticed that he always wore socks with holes in them, so I got him a belt and some socks from a very nice department store. In addition, on the cutesy side, since I love teddy bears, and since he is Polish and his last name ends in a ‘ski,’ and his friends all call him ‘Ski,’ I got him an expensive teddy bear on skis. What did I get in return? A snow scraper for my car and a two-way phone jack.”
Brad: “We had just been dating for a couple of months when Hanukkah rolled around. Kim invited me to her mother’s house for a family Hanukkah party. I had bought her a very nice gift, I thought, a pink sweater, but I certainly didn’t buy gifts for her mother and father and two sisters whom I had never met before. I never even thought about it. I thought we were just going to eat potato pancakes and then get out of there. Well, every member of her family had gifts for me, and not just one gift. They each had eight gifts for me, one for each night of Hanukkah. Some of them were just little things like a book and a can of tennis balls, but some were really expensive, like an alligator wallet and a CD Walkman. I was so humiliated, I could never bring myself to see Kim again. I called her a couple of times so I wouldn’t be a complete jerk, but then I just let the relationship peter out. And I liked her, but I knew I could never face her family again.”
New Year’s Eve
Meg: “I learned my lesson this year. I had been dating three guys, all of whom I liked, but none of whom I was crazy about. Two of them asked me out for New Year’s Eve. One was to go to a BYO pizza party at his friend’s pigsty apartment, the other was to go to a neighborhood bar that was going to pass out favors and hats and noisemakers at midnight. Neither seemed very glamorous or exciting and I sort of put both of the guys on hold, hoping the third guy, who had more class than the other two, would ask me out. I knew that in other years he had taken girls to really nice restaurants and clubs. Well, I kept putting off the first two guys until they finally got other dates and the third guy never asked me. I spent New Year’s Eve alone.”
Jack: “I can’t count how much money I’ve spent taking girls out on New Year’s Eve to overpriced parties with mediocre food and watered down drinks. I’ve rented tuxes and limos, bought corsages and passionately kissed at midnight some girl I wasn’t all that in love with. But last year took the cake. Come midnight, my date, on whom I had blown, all told, about $250, was nowhere to be seen. I finally found her around 12:30 in the coatroom, buried under all the coats with one of the busboys. This year, I rented some videos, ordered a pizza and went to bed around 10:00 p.m. I consider it my best New Year’s Eve ever and expect to make it a tradition.”