Inspired by high profile publications such as Seventeen magazine, The Cavalier Daily went on a mission to uncover the University's most X-treme Valentine's Day memories.
What follows is the uncut, hardcore truth behind real life men and women's love trials on the most abhorred and yet most adored holiday of the year.
V-Day as D-Day
"I knew I didn't really like this girl anymore, and it just happened to be February 14th when I broke up with her," said Ryan Hayes, a visiting freshman from the University of Central Florida who was walking through Newcomb Plaza when The Cavalier Daily tracked him down.
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"If I'd stayed with her, I would have had to buy presents for someone who was gonna be gone in a few days anyway," Hayes said, justifying his junior high school break-up.
First-year College student Will Boland committed a similar act.
"We had an elementary school dance that night that I didn't want to go to," Boland said. "I had to break up with her to avoid it."
Feb. 14 has also had its fair share of drama for first-year College student Steve Bowman.
Bowman began planning for Valentine's Day three months before the holiday arrived last year, specifically waiting until Nov. 14 to ask out his crush.
"We went out that Friday night, Nov. 13, and I waited until after midnight to ask her out, so that our three-month anniversary would fall on Valentine's Day," Bowman said.
"On Valentine's Day we went to the beach, where we had a picnic lunch, and later, a candlelight dinner on the deck of my beach house overlooking the ocean," he continued.
When the clock struck 12:06 a.m., the exact time of Bowman's proposal three-months earlier, he and his girlfriend professed their love to one another.
This year, though, Bowman is living the single life.
"This Valentine's Day is going to be Black Monday," said the disillusioned romantic.
Twinkle in the sky
In an effort to really make his girlfriend Katie swoon, first-year College student Will Colglazier called up the International Star Registry last year and bought her a star.
The Star Registry mailed him a "big, nice" certificate to verify the ownership and sent maps with the coordinates of the star called Katie-Will to help them find their star in the night sky.
"If they find life near this star, or if it becomes part of any significant event, they have to refer to the star as Katie-Will," Colglazier said.
But Colglazier confessed that he should have named the star Will's Girl, so that if he and his girlfriend ever break up, he'd have a present on hand for next year.
Knowing she wanted to make Feb. 14 extra special for her boyfriend of two years, fourth-year College student Jennifer Austin woke up in the middle of the night her senior year of high school to execute her master plan.
Driving over to his house in the wee hours of the morning, she covered his driveway and sidewalk with chalked hearts and mushy messages. On the hood of his car, she spelled out their names in candy hearts. For the final touch, she hung lollipops from strings in front of his windows.
"When he woke up that morning at, like, 6:30 a.m. he called me and said, 'The Valentine's Fairy came last night,'" Austin said.
Little things that count
Second-year College student Julie Baker didn't feel like the third wheel when her boyfriend brought along a visitor to their date last Valentine's Day.
Baker's boyfriend showed up at her door with the standard red rose to take her to dinner at the Doubletree, a swanky hotel on Route 29. What appeared to be a conventional date soon took a warm and fuzzy turn - literally.
"I thought it was weird when we walked into the restaurant, and the hostess knew my name," Baker said.
She was then escorted through a special entrance in order to get a full glimpse of the awaiting "party."
In her chair sat a big, white teddy bear.
Second-year College student Chris Doermann has had a tough time finding a Valentine's Day of the caliber of his sixth grade year.
Dating a girl a whole grade younger than him, Doermann went out to eat with his best friend, his girlfriend, and of course, his dad. But the culmination of the evening came when the group stepped into the movie theater for the opening night of "Wayne's World."
"The next day, I think she gave me Paula Abdul's "Spellbound" CD," Doermann added.
The Desperate
'Tis better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all, right?
Third-year College student Ryan Harvey had never had a girlfriend on Valentine's Day before. He was determined to change that.
Harvey said during his senior year of high school, he unabashedly ran up to an acquaintance on Feb. 14 and said, "Hey. Why don't you be my girlfriend?"
Denied but not defeated, he tried to bargain with the girl.
"I told her we could go out for five minutes, just so I could say I had a girlfriend on Valentine's Day," Harvey said.
She agreed to break up in five minutes, but Harvey took off running and managed to avoid her for two days. This avoidance extended their forged relationship.
"She thought it was a joke, but I tricked her," Harvey boasted. "That's how I get the women."
Visiting James Madison University student Erin Field recalled a Valentine's when she saw a group of boys desperately searching for a girl with whom they could share the day.
Even though her boyfriend, first-year College student Greg Hansard, was out of town for the romantic holiday, Field and her friends weren't going to let that get them down.
"We went to a local pizza place to celebrate, and sitting there were three guys with flowers," Field said. "Whenever a girl who looked about their age walked in, they would go over and hand her a rose."
Needless to say, Field and her friends didn't go away empty-handed.
Perhaps celebrating this year simply constitutes sending Mom an e-card.
But whether students are single, sitting in a pizza parlor passing out roses, or madly in love and showing it in creative ways, only they can decide if Feb. 14 is going to be just another day of the year.
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