You're listening to the microversion of the Savage Love cast at Savage.loaf.

It was a few years ago.

I was out to dinner with my boyfriend at this place.

We go to all the time. It's a place we never have had a problem getting a table.

A place where we both get the duck.

The place has a name, but we always call it duck place.

And this night, this one night, we had to wait for a table, which was weird.

And then we waited more than an hour for our food, which was even weirder.

While we waited, starving, we played cards and silence, which is what we do when we go out to dinner.

And at some point, I realized that every other table had a couple at it.

No six tops, no four tops, as they say in the restaurant biz, just two tops.

And then I realized we were getting looks, not because we're gay, but because we were sitting there.

In silence, playing hand after hand of this card game we're both obsessed with.

And cards that night just wasn't the vibe.

The vibe in the room was date night.

And somehow, by not holding hands across the table and staring into each other's eyes,

while we waited for the food that never came, we were ruining the vibe for everyone else.

And that's when I realized we had accidentally gone out to dinner on Valentine's Day.

How is that even possible? How do you go out to dinner together by accident on Valentine's Day?

I mean, aren't there hearts up everywhere and boxes of heart-shaped chocolates that check out

around Valentine's Day all to remind us it's coming? Yes, there are. But those reminders,

they're up for weeks, all those hearts and flowers and flowers and chocolates and heart-shaped

...