It’s v-day… and like the massively overpriced flowers so many poor boyfriends are heavily obliged to send out this day, I feel the pressure to serve up a v-day related post.
For the 2 of you left reading my blog on v-day, here’s why I hate it (and yes this all really happened. I’m not smart enough to make it up):
About 9 years ago, I had just broken up with someone my parents didn’t approve of. The (very short) relationship wouldn’t have survived anyway, but I was really mad at them for interfering – I “grew up” when I left home at 17 to study in Singapore, and was the kind of kid who even had General Knowledge Time scheduled in – on a Saturday morning in the school library where I could find The Economist.
SO I was deeply offended by my parents’ lack of faith in my judgment at age 25.
Anyway. As an un-married, I often took leave on v-day just to avoid the observations of who got flowers and who got bigger flowers. The traditionally open-plan dealing room lets everyone see each bouquet making its way thru the rows and rows of desks and computer screens, ending up at – oh, her desk. How come she got that? Did she send it to herself? (Yes, really, that can happen.) Her boyfriend could’ve done better. Does he not know what that looked like before he sent it? To be safe he should have used <insert name of atas florist>
One of my (fairly openly) gay colleagues got exquisite flowers. This (very unpopular) older woman who was divorced then bitched about the arrangement. Gay colleague (still my friend today) said “You’re a woman you didn’t even get any.” Mee-ow. I’m escaping on leave.
After I broke up with Guy My Parents Disapproved Of, my mum, knowing I was really mad at them, sent not 1 but TWO giant bouquets to the office. As usual, I was on leave, so my more gossipy colleagues then had a whole day to speculate. It must have to do with this dealing room in particular because my married roommate during this bank’s orientation had decided it was hilarious to have an affair with a married trader- and call the man’s wife for the ensuing painful conversation in front of me. For some reason social lives were uh, a little more talked about here.
That wasn’t all. The Mother of All Mortifications was when my mum, in full covert mission mode also penned a mushy “You are my whole world” love note on the card. Which got passed around the dealing room because some idiot apparently thought the bouquet was for him and opened it. Also attached to the bouquet was the bill – with my dad’s name on it since my mum had used his credit card. I.. happen to share the same surname as my dad.
So the next day the #2 boss in the whole dealing room hands me the bigger of the 2 giant bouquets n asks, “so, WHO is <insert name my mum signed on card>?”
<thinking> Don’t try to stop me from killing myself.
“You can’t like him much or you would have told him you were off yesterday.”
<thinking> This is true.
“Not cheap you know, v-day flowers.. If I had known you weren’t coming in I would have sent your bouquets to my wife and girlfriend. Bigger one of course go to girlfriend. Then go and buy cheaper one today and give you back. Arbitrage.”
<thinking> I have no one to stop me from killing myself.
I was alone on v-day. I’m not speaking to my parents.
Ironically my colleagues refused to believe my parents sent the flowers. And love note. Everyone just went on about my “secret boyfriend”. For weeks the boss who handed me the flowers would plump down in the chair next to me periodically and go “So. Who is he?”.
Took me awhile to figure why anyone would give a flying F- about my “secret boyfriend” – it’s because they wondered if he might be a boss at a competitor bank. (Btw Kings and I once worked for bosses who famously hated each other when they worked together – so then one killed the other, who then had to move to another bank)
<thinking> Like it wasn’t bad enough I was dateless and hiding at home. Or that I was born of people who send me mortifying love notes and bouquets. Now I apparently have some senior investment bank secret boyfriend to pull out of a hat.
I HATE MY LIFE.
I HATE V-DAY.
Parents.
Write this down.
Sympathy flowers are worse than no flowers at all.
Stay. Away. On. V-day.
If you’re so upset your daughter is upset, get her a car or something. Better value for money anyway.
PS: That’s my Pandora charm bracelet up there. Seriously addictive. Kings and Rockstar put it together last Christmas and I’ve been adding stuff since. Rockstar picked the blue polka dots on white to symbolize the great time we had in the snow that he wanted me to remember. Kings picked the teal celtic bead because he thought it looked a little like the fortune cookies – of which he ate one, paper and all, much to all our amusement.
The two hearts with crowns are to symbolize the two “Kings” who gave me the bracelet.
When we got back from CNY last week, I went straight down to pick up that leaves with hearts and diamonds charm. It’s called “Fruits Of The Spirit” (Biblical reference) but also, it reminds me of the greenery my mum lovingly tends to outside the home where I used to grow up. The greenery wasn’t always there – nor were happy memories. Both came much later.
Oh yeah, and we kinda celebrated with family sushi dinner last night. And JD got a pack of tennis balls, just because.
Must… Ask Kings how many bouquets he helped his clients order for wives and girlfriends this year. I used to tumpang and ask him to help me send one to a girl who used to work for me way back before Rockstar.. (She takes me out for nice lunch on my bday). One year she told me Kings’ name had appeared on the receipt. That brought a mad rush so Kings’ clients’ wives and girlfriends would not also see his name on the receipt.
I like to say when you complicate investment products with more derivatives, you always have to pay for the additional derivatives in the structure. So you should only spend the money when you put the structure together if you have a very good reason, ie it’s something you really want the structure to do (as opposed to investing in the newest fad of structured product). It drives me crazy when you buy a derivative when it’s pricing “expensive”. The investment bank Sales showing me the product has to have a very, very good reason for recommending it.
K was my very good reason. For sending overpriced flowers on v-day, I mean. She was recovering from the end of a 12 year relationship and hardly spoke on the desk for the first 6 months after it happened. She’s getting married this year. Not when she didn’t work for me anymore (I left for a better opportunity, then got pregnant before she could join me), I stopped sending her flowers when she met this guy.
(<sheepish> I kinda slacked off calling her after hearing at catch up that he had proposed in an Ocean Park cable car with a few friends to catch the moment on camera. I figured she was doing better than alright you see).
I recall you saying you had 9 boyfriends before Kings. So surely this meant there were very few Valentine days spent without receiving flowers?
Why did your parents disapprove of your ex?
Is there something unique about HK and Singapore banking culture which makes it a normal practice for someone in Kings’ job to send flowers on behalf of his clients? Surely it has to be a personal effort (short of growing the flowers oneself) to make it count?
Shouldn’t the post be entitled “Why I hated Valentine’s Day” – past tense?
– aware i’m speaking to someone way more technical than i am, my thing about “v-day inflation”is the same as with additional layers of complication in a derivative investment – do you have a very good reason to pay the premium? i usually don’t so i can’t bring myself to celebrate on that day cos i don’t find it justified. same as buying a diamond right – why buy a solitaire from tiffany for about 40% markup when the cert is still GIA and i afford much more gem for the same price from a trader (and also with GIA cert)?
– received lotsa flowers not on v-day, i used to save a dried sprig from each and catalogue them in those box frames ikea used to sell
– parents disapproved cos he used to be in a gang. past tense. but in my case it wasn’t the gang thing, we used to be friends, just couldn’t make the transition to a relationship. i got mad because they freaked out so much they approached and voiced their disapproval to our mutual friends and our friends told us.
– no banking culture thing re sending flowers, it was a buddy thing, “damn, i forgot to do the booking for a delivery early enough n now they’re fully booked they can’t fit my delivery in”… “ay, xyz just realized he was too late getting the booking in, your booking ok or not, do u need help too?”
– Kings is not even an RM and i have never been one, but I think RMs potentially could end up doing a lot more of this kind of thing than IB Sales
– v-day as a concept i like, but as a single i found a lot of “baggage” attached to v-day actions that really turn me off. because human beings often find it hard to look at something without judging someone or comparing something…
– so Kings and i just sms on that day itself
Happy Belated V-Day , Belated CNY and Belated Christmas greetings to you and your two ‘Kings’. Your charm bracelet has such meaningful charms. 🙂
Even the kids in the secondary school here send chocs to themselves. Luckily my daughter thinks it’s so silly . 🙂
How I spent my V-day? No pressies from hubby. We just spent time cycling around our ‘taman’ with the kids …at 8pm. 🙂
p/s i am still reading yr blog…. my daily schedules in 2011 as a SAHM leaves me so little personal time. 😛
Hihi jk, so glad to hear from you again! Didn’t know the kids send chocs, but the whole v thing sounds like another way kids can potentially be mean to each other… cycling sounds nice… kings and rockstar like to as well – more bad news for me, i suck at it 😛
ps: what’s an SAHM please?
Cycling is so much fun!! (even though i have lesen ‘kopi o’ cos i only picked it up in my mid-teens. couldn’t afford to buy – i ‘borrowed’ ehemmm my dad’s workers bicycle when they were at work) We just bought 2 new bikes – a bike with gears for my older son cos his old bike passed down to the younger boy and an ‘ah ma’ bike (cos it comes with a basket in front and a seat at the back. 🙂 So we have four bikes at the front porch…and sometimes we pinjam 1 more bike from my nephew who stays nearby.
We used to stay at an apartment and it was not really safe to cycle. We shifted to a guarded neighbourhood where kids and adults cycle occasionally, dogs go for walks…with their owners of course 🙂 and the basketball court at the ‘padang’ is brightly lit at nite. B/ball court is nothing fancy lar. It’s not really a big ‘taman’ but I feel that it’s safe enough for us to go cycling. Hubby’s thinking of playing b/ball with the kids at nite one of these days.
I am still not very good at cycling. Have warned the boys to stay away from me when they cycle. They like to hover around us when they cycle and it makes me nervous.
SAHM means stay at home mum. Got to know this acronym from reading blogs. I love to read but don’t have the time… so I read blogs when i can… I love to watch drama series. Don’t have the time…T__T so i read summaries and synopsis of the episodes instead. 4 kids – 3 different schools, 4 different schedules plus cooking, cleaning, ferrying the kids…and no maid (can’t afford :P) …means very little ME time.
but when my 17yr old girl tells her frens about mum’s ‘signature’ dishes (actually simple dishes lar) when they came over to ‘pai neen’ and other little stuffs that my other kids do ….really warms my heart and i feel appreciated… most of the time. 😛
I just hope that one day they will remember mummy wasn’t always a ‘yellow faced woman’ (wong meen poh)
ps : saya juga orang negeri sembilan. kampung saya dekat pantai 🙂 tetapi pantai itu sudah tercemar …bukan macam dulu. 🙁