Coeur à la Crème & my broken heart – A night to forget!

If you get the impression from the Coeur à la Crème photo above that I am hostile towards Valentine’s Day,  I can assure you I am.

I owe this ‘holiday’ no loyalty!  February after February the day as never failed to sour any sweet display of love I have felt while eating a fancy dinner in public. My experiences with it have, however, left me several real-life lessons one cannot find on a greeting cards or tags fastened to roses arriving at your place of work.

Not being one for sappy platitudes I will still present this Coeur à la Crème, a heart-shaped blob of milk-fat — one of the sappiest of all Valentine’s Day desserts.

I hate it.

A dessert comprised solely of cream cheese (and other dairy,) sugar and a splash of vanilla elevated to its romantic tradition solely based on it being heart-shaped. Spare me. Just looking at it makes me wretch. It does, however, compel me to share with you the tale of my 25th Valentine’s Day. The one where my own naive coeur à la crème was stabbed savagely by my “true love.”

This is “The One With Dr. Frank.”

I was a romantically naive 25 years old. A newbie at romance and dating being only recently out.  A teenager-equivalent really. I had managed to suppress all dating activity until I had finished college a few years earlier. Unfortunately, this imparted a false sense of urgency to the situation each time the slightest hint of romance would present itself. Each new chance at love would seem as if it were my last chance.  I know now the sweet-spot for my true love hadn’t yet begun but at twenty five it felt as if my chances were slipping by.

Then I met Dr. Frank.

My grandma would have described Dr. Frank as “all that and a bag of chips.” True fact:  when I met Frank he was actually holding a bag of chips and cruising me in the supermarket snack aisle. His bold, overt interest, while staring at me like a meal was something I had not yet experienced.  His complete lack of shame while broadcasting his interest was inebriating!  He gave me the hot tinglies! Fifteen years of trying desperately to remain invisible made it simultaneously unnerving and exciting when a guy as gorgeous and “normal” could see me so easily…and still want me…

I was to botch this first meeting.  I imagine that Dr. Frank was annoyed with my inexperienced and awkward small talk.  No matter.  I wasn’t a fully baked gay yet and my cruising patter would need some work.  Not quite ready to let Dr. Frank “close the deal” self scampered off sheepishly to the safety of my bachelorhood.  

We would meet again several months later at a house party thrown by a mutual friend. Dr. Frank recognized me immediately and honed in like a CIA drone locked on target.  He flirted even more shamelessly than he had before. I was no match for his full attention and immediately fell under his spell. Although not the host he behaived like one and asked me if I would like a cocktail. By the end of the evening I was head-over-heals for Dr. Frank, planning our wedding and eventual retirement to the Italian countryside where I would cook large afternoon lunches and we’d nap all afternoon under the olive trees. 

He seemed to be everything I would ever want. Five years older than me, he was handsome beyond measure, successful, confident, unashamed, and most importantly: interested in me.

Unfortunately, I hadn’t quite learned yet how to see the inside of people.

Dating Dr. Frank was never easy but it was always an exciting, thrilling ride and a very passionate one at that. I could never count on him to call when he said he would, and it seemed almost purposeful that I would never actually know when I would see him next. Of course this made it difficult to work out the details of our future married-to-doctor-frank life together, but for that torso-and-fancy-car I would learn to make do.  One good date night (and an early morning) at his place would wipe away any concerns I might have had so I could go on projecting any “reality” I desired onto my life.

“He just forgot to call because he’s under a lot of work stress right now.”

We dated all of 3 months when February 14th started to roll around. I just knew this would be my very first special Valentine’s Day — a romantic celebration I had craved! The 25-year-old me, the guy who had never dated anyone for this length of time, anxiously waited for Dr. Frank’s invitation. Certainly Frank was planning something special and would call me as soon as he had all the specifics arranged!

Right?

Eventually, Dr. Frank would call and ask me to the local hot-spot gay restaurant in town. Wow! I would get the double satisfaction of a romantic prix-fixe dinner date with my super hot doctor guy AND the first-ever pubic presentation of us as a couple. I had grown quietly frustrated we hadn’t yet managed to be seen out publicly as a couple. But this night, with what was sure to be our happiness on full display, would have me forgetting all about this un-noticed clue.

Score!

Coeur à la Crème

The benefit of  hindsight now shows me there were, in fact, many, many clues I had chosen to ignore. Had I actually seen them I would have known our night (and our relationship) would not end well. Dr. Frank would not be picking me up in his pride-and-joy Mercedes that night as was his usual habit. Instead he asked me to meet him at the restaurant.

“He’s so busy taking care of patients. I don’t mind at all if this makes it easier for him.”

Even though I did mind. Both of us loved it when he would pull up to my door, in my neighborhood full of busybodies and toot the horn — my neighbors would turn their heads and admire his expensive car.

And so I parked my own car that night, walked in alone, and was shown to the table by the host.  Upon approach the entire night changed in that second. There were four other people sitting at the table with my boyfriend!

Dr. Frank noticed me, stood up, and came over to kiss me hello. On the lips  with an open mouth! He introduced his table-mates, men I had never seen before: there was Tom (his dashing “ex”), Darrel (his “other ex” and even more handsome), and finally Carlo and Michael —  “the other guys I’m dating right now.”

Um…whats, huh?

I do remember feeling a dizzying thwap to the head, a punch to the gut next, and then a cacophony of unintelligible table chit-chat while my pounding heart would not let me hear anybody’s actual words for several minutes. Too much revelation was was hitting me all at once. Where was my cocktail?

Should I to have known about these people? Who were they and why were they at MY Valentine’s Day celebration with my boyfriend Dr. Frank? 

Had this been a movie scene this would have been the moment where I scream “how very dare you!” and throw a cocktail in his face, call him an asshole and storm out of the restaurant. WASP training, no, genetics, is hard ignore so  quietly suppressed emotions and sat down to a dinner with Dr. Frank’s and his other boyfriends. If anyone was watching me I would not give them the pleasure of witnessing my meltdown.  

A self-debrief of the last three months would have to take place at a later time with the help of a therapist surely, but in that moment all eyes seemed to be on me to witness what I would later come to find out was Dr. Frank’s Valentine dinner tradition: getting the gang together!

I opted to keep my cool. Besides one of Dr. Franks other unsuspecting boyfriends was smoking hot! 

Carlo was dark and Italian looking and we quickly bonded over the mutual injustice done to us by Dr. Frank. We drank multiple expensive cocktails and sharpened our wit, both at Frank’s expense. When it was time for dessert our server reverently placed before each of us a perfectly formed miniature coeur a la creme.

Over the course of an hour or two our table for six morphed into a flirty table for two.  Me and Carlo was all that mattered. Like Dr. Frank, Carlo was bold and full of confidence and he too earned my attentions by asking if I would like a cocktail. After cocktail. And why not? I was newly single again (handwriting on the wall and all that) and being the advanced age of twenty five I couldn’t afford to let a chance at love pass me by. Making the best of it was a lot easier by having Carlo’s hand grope me under the table.

“Carlo, lets consider this our first date!”

Eventually the two of us would get up to say our tipsy goodbyes to Dr. Frank and his living tableau of romantic history. They hadn’t much paid attention to us, nor we them, and we doubted they would miss us much. Besides, it was getting late and we were eager to leave them to the rest of their lives and get on with ours.  Hopefully first back at Carlo’s apartment and then eventually to the Italian countryside.  

We made a big show of walking back through the restaurant together holding hands and acting as if we had just had the best dinner of our lives. We kissed goodnight at the front door and Carlo offered to walk me to my car. Such a gentleman!

The night’s surprises were not yet over. 

As we passed Dr. Frank’s beloved Mercedes Carlo, in a blink of the eye, took  a serrated steak knife he must have pocketed from the restaurant out and plunged it effortlessly into the driver’s side front tire. Barely a pop and before I could register what had just happened I heard the hiss of a second stab to the read tire.

And with that maneuver — Carlo simultaneously deflated the poor doctor’s ride home and my hopes for a new boyfriend to heal the wounds left by Dr. Frank.

Run!

It would be the last time I saw Carlo but from tat night forward I was finally ready to relax and let people reveal themselves to me before falling for them. Mostly. Kind of. Not always. I would try. 

I consider this lesson my Valentine’s gift from Dr. Frank and I still remember him fondly for it. It would not be the last time I would ever see Dr. Frank. He would return to my life later and make several key re-appearances later – but never again with the same sense of gravitas and drama he had when I was only 25, and in a hurry. 

Damn Valentine’s Day.  Stupid dessert.

As delicious as it is, I will never enjoy this Coeur à la Crème, you might so please try it.