Roses are red. Garbage smells rotten. At one point, I liked you, but why? I've forgotten.

I no longer have a working computer, so I can't make my traditional playlist of "Love Stinks" songs for Valentine's Day consolation. Luckily, I don't really need it - V day seems to be a much more understated deal here. I've seen a few shops advertising for sexy underwear or whatever, but there aren't masses of hearts floating around everywhere, and even the school isn't at all decorated. As someone who's been single for every Valentine's Day of her life, it's nice to spend one without feeling like there are loudspeakers everywhere blaring "Single? Oh. Well, good luck finding fulfillment and happiness by next year!"

College is not the best place to be unattached. I didn't go to the big senior ball the school held in the fall - I stayed in with my roommate, and we ate pizza and watched Fever Pitch - but some of my friends did go stag. They were so happy when they left for the dance, looking absolutely gorgeous, of course. A few hours later, though, they knocked on our door after coming back early. You can have the healthiest self-image ever, but if you've gotten all dressed up and are ready to enjoy yourself and hang out with your friends, only to realize that you're one of a few people without a date and are surrounded by couples making out on the dance floor, it torpedoes whatever good feelings you had about that night. You leave early and then spend most of the night sitting on your bed, head leaning against the wall, wondering why nobody wants you. There are no atheists in the trenches? There aren't many feminists at a fancy ball, either.

Not that I imagined that my friends who were in relationships existed in a state of eternal bliss. I had a lot of friends who spent way too much time and effort with boyfriends who were indifferent, condescending, mean, still obsessed with a former girlfriend, or unfaithful. I wanted better for them, and definitely want better for myself.

So anyway, I've been thinking about love at this time of year - like ya do - and the thought occured to me: what would I do with a boyfriend?

I mean besides the obvious and unprintable (minds out of the gutter a moment, my friends). What would having a boyfriend look like, given my current lifestyle? I remembered something an American friend of mine here said, half-facetiously, about her new relationship: "Oh, you know how boyfriends are. They call you all the time. They always want to know where you are. They always want to do stuff with you."

See, this does not sound romantic or nice to me. It sounds pretty awful, in fact. I like my privacy. I like being accountable to no one but myself for my time. I like being able to meet new people and feel that my possibilites are open. And the thing is - it's such a cliche that you go to Europe to find yourself, but in a sense, that's what I feel like I'm doing. Now that I'm not in college, I have no excuses not to call myself an adult anymore and to try to figure out the adult I want to be. And I feel like I'm just starting to realize really important things: how to talk to people, how to care for people, how to be honest with myself. Not that having a boyfriend would necessarily interfere with any of that, but I feel like it would concentrate my social energies when I'm pretty happy dispersing them - enjoying Berlin and the people I've met here, traveling, thinking about the future. I wouldn't mind working on that other cliche of the American abroad and finding a mysterious and sexy European stranger to have a fling with, but I don't really want a relationship right now - I'm definitely feeling less "whither thou goest, I go" and more "dude, let's hang out a while." I don't want to settle. I don't want to have to worry about nursing someone else's ego. I really just want to - cue the music - have fun, and figure out who I am and what I want out of life.

And maybe, in one Valentine's Day or ten, I will find someone who has a sense of humor, who treats me like a person with a brain, who I'll want to love and respect and admire and have phone conversations with that last for hours and be with all the time and all that. I hope so. It would certainly help elucidate most of the Western canon and a lot of bad pop songs.

But, you know. No hurry.