Valentine's Day Prequel.
Almost eleven years later, a recount of Our First Date
We were nineteen years old, 2nd years at Grinnell, and both dating guys. Grinnell's got a pretty big Stonewall Coalition crowd, and is quite liberal... and so it's probably difficult to graduate without at least a same-sex kiss. Probably (I haven't got any actual stats) there's a high proportion of lugs* and that's certainly where I thought Jenny and I fit. So second year, on Disco night (March 9, 1996), I squarely fell into the questioning category**, with Jenny landing right beside me, and both of us saying, "this is isn't happening" to anyone who suspected. Then we went biking across Florida with some friends for Spring break... and you put two questioning girls in a hotel room together... and then we lived with our friend in St. Paul, MN for the next summer... and then studied abroad in different countries for our 3rd year at Grinnell (Jenny in France & me in Costa Rica). Usually, we count Disco night in 1996 as our anniversary, and we got married in March 2004, so March is definitely our month.
Although we'd been going out for two years by this point, I think our first real date was Valentine's Day our Senior year at Grinnell because the first two years were complicated by study abroad and denial. We went the traditional route and planned together so there'd be flowers, chocolates, dinner, wine (we were finally 21) and a teddy bear (who we still have-- our wireless network is named for the bear). Every year since, we always celebrate Valentine's Day. For many years we got an annual teddy bear, but later transitioned to jewelry & other romantic items because neither of us really wanted a teddy bear collection but couldn't replace past bears with new bear, and the collection was getting too big.
* Lesbians Until Graduation
** Maybe if you read iPal on Vday this year, we'll post pictures. Maybe. Well... probably because I'm thinking that more lgbt people really need to post our stories online (I know... tons already are, but there should be millions & billions). Visibility by the truckload.