My best Valentine’s Day was my first one in London: my then-boyfriend and I had made no particular plans, so we went to a generic and cheap Italian restaurant for dinner, on Lamb’s Conduit Street. No one else was there, at all — a bad sign for a restaurant on any Saturday night, but this was Valentine’s Day AND a Saturday night.
This is a bad sign, I leaned in and whispered to my then-boyfriend as the waiter left to put our order — the only order — in to the kitchen.
This restaurant, I said, must be really struggling if we’re the only people here not just on a Saturday night, but on Valentine’s Day.
It’s a good thing we’re here, he said.
Then we ate some risotto and felt beneficent, and I felt neither more in love nor less in love with him than I usually did. Because Valentine’s Day is only good when you don’t need it at all.
