‘Love is merely a madness,” Shakespeare wrote. For some it most certainly is “a” madness, at least in the beginning, for others nearer the end of love's bloom, they may prefer to call it simply “madness,” as in the anger of love's letdown.

The two couples sat like bookends, each at the far ends of the bar. I was standing in the emptiness in between. And believe me, that emptiness was expansive.

One of the amazing things about standing behind a plank of wood on which drinks rest is that over that very plank I get to watch some dreams begin and some others end. With that in mind as well as the imminence of Valentine's Day, I wandered down to one end to check on their half-full glasses of sparkling rose.

The couple e were looking deep into each others eyes when I arrived.

“You are so cute when you eat,” he said.

She giggled as he reached over and gently wiped a speck of food from the side of her cheek.

I stood there awkwardly waiting for either of them to acknowledge me.

They didn't, so I slowly moved purposefully toward the other couple. In the bar business it is important to know when to be there and perhaps more importantly, when not to be.

Couple two was an entirely different story.

“I'll have a green salad with dressing on the side,” she said.

He sat with arms folded and stared at his date over half-empty glasses of red wine, with neither love nor

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tenderness.

“There you go,” he said.

“What?” she said.

“Why do you always have to be such a problem?” he said, looking at me.

I could feel a bead of sweat trickle down my back.

“You used to think it was cute.”

“It used to be.”

I stood there looking back and forth, the second time in just as many minutes that I had felt awkward.

I started to walk away.

“Can you believe him?” she said gesturing at him, but looking directly at me.

One of the most uncomfortable experiences in the service industry is when one customer complains through you about another customer sitting within earshot.

I stood in front of the couple wishing that I was somewhere else — perhaps like they were — even if that somewhere else was three steps to my right.

After doing my best to negotiate the pitfalls of that relationship I again made my way back down to the first couple.

She ate her salad by slowly dipping each lettuce leaf into the dressing. One drop of balsamic clung to her bottom lip, as if it couldn't decide whether it wanted to accompany the lettuce or make a break for the tablecloth. Its quandary was cut short by a fast-acting counter and his handy napkin.

“Thank you,” she smiled.

“No, thank you,” he replied.

Eight feet away things weren't going so well.

“You are eating like a pig.”

Eventually a third couple sat between the two, which added, thankfully, a new dimension. They were soon followed by several other patrons, all of which served to divert my attention to just the process of making drinks.

Soon, we will see Lincoln's birthday, Valentine's Day, Presidents' Day and Mardi Gras, all within a five-day span, which should add more confusion to the already-confusing game of love. And so, a few thoughts, one for each day:

Feb. 12: Abraham Lincoln proposed to perhaps as many as four women before Mary Todd finally accepted. He also once wrote, “I can never be satisfied with any one who would be blockhead enough to have me.”

Feb. 14: Isn't it odd that in romantic relationships, some of the very things that attract us in the beginning are the very things that repel us in the end?

Feb. 15: “Misconstrue not my meaning; doubt it not, nor expose it. The world has no business to know the object of my love declared in this manner to you, when I want to conceal it,” wrote George Washington three months before he married Martha Custis. Unfortunately that letter was to Sally Fairfax, who was already married to someone else.

Feb. 16: On Bourbon Street during Mardi Gras women are encouraged to show their breasts for cheap trinkets. Furthermore, Marie Antoinette, the last Bourbon Queen (by marriage) had models made of her breasts for either a dairy bowl or the original champagne glass.

Speaking with the weight of history behind me, I can say that breasts are clearly the best accompaniment to bourbon. And who am I to argue with history?

Jeff Burkhart is an award-winning bartender at a Marin bar/restaurant and an author. His columns appear weekly in Here. Contact him at jeffb@thebarflyonline.com.