“You get disoriented, and all of a sudden pressure builds and anxiety builds,” Rainy Lehrman, 47, a woodworker, said. She and her husband, Leonard White, 44, a teacher, had dropped off their two children in Ikea’s child care area and were splitting the cod. “It seemed like the fanciest thing,” Mr. White said.
While most guests were dressed casually, Tiffany Shum and Lani Wang, both 19-year-old students at the Cooper Union, had wore coordinating pale blue dresses for the occasion. The two friends had chosen to skip their computer architecture class in favor of something more fun and head to Red Hook.
They each said they would consider bringing a date to Ikea. “But not a first date,” Ms. Shum added.
If many of the guests considered Ikea to be a jokey rebuke of the fussiness of Valentine’s Day, at least one couple found it to be genuinely romantic.
Jade Doskow, 45, a freelance photographer, and Lambert Fernando, 52, a senior security manager at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, spent Valentine’s Day together at the same Ikea more than 15 years ago because it had seemed like the cheapest option with a good view of the city. (The menu has changed little, Mr. Fernando said.)
This time, they were joined by their 13-year-old son, Benjamin, who ate French fries and did not exactly share in their nostalgia. “It’s just, like, a big chain Swedish store with furniture,” he said. “It’s not much of a romantic place at all.”
His mother corrected him: “It is tonight.”
Sumber: www.nytimes.com
