By Carl
Well, it’s Valentine’s Day, the one day each year that every man in America, and by “America” I mean the world, dreads. It seems a man can never get this occasion quite right: she’s allergic to flowers, candy makes her fat, the lingerie is the wrong size– and heaven help you if you get a size too big!– and dinner tells her she can’t cook. And really, after the diamond-studded fur bathroom sink, how many diamonds can a man buy?
And god forbid the man make even the slightest, eensiest joke about sex on “the holiest romanticest day of the year”! Once I cracked wise about getting my heart on all day and she never spoke to me again!
Maybe the joke would have worked better in a note, I guess.
And none of this takes anything away from the women on Valentine’s Day, who have it almost as hard. If she’s married, she has to grin and bear the usual clumsy last-minute presents, including (if she has any) the handmade card from the kids. If she’s single, she either has to put up with the plethora of invitations from guys who figure they can get some that night easily, or the shame of a silent phone.
I’d bet the sales of Haagen-Daz and sweat pants spikes beginning February 1.
Hookers look forward to today. They actually get a day off. I’d bet if there were a Hookervania, it would be a national holiday, a day when the blood can flow back into their legs (gender neutral, you’ll note).
No one else does.
Which brings up today’s topic: love.
The obvious promotional aspect of this holiday aside, why is it necessary to set aside a day, nearly a holiday, to show love to people you care about?
If we care about the important people in our lives, what does it matter that one day a year we buy them flowers or candy or jewelry? If I give care to a loved one the other 364 days a year, should I feel guilty because one day I forget to mark an occasion? If I make a life with someone, does it matter that I prefer to show her (or him) thru being a partner 365 days a year, if by missing this silly holiday, she gets angry at me?
I’m so over these forced displays that some corporate suit has decided means something in this world. I want simplicity. I don’t need Halloween to dress up all scary (most Friday nights will suffice). I don’t need the fourth Thursday in November to tell the world “Thank you”. I don’t need the 25th of December to buy a raft of presents for people I care about. I do that on the spur of the moment.
And the people who know me, who care about me and who I care about, who love me, know this about me. I don’t need to show love to give love to someone.
To love someone is to let them know they matter to you, that what happens to them matters and that you want to help them as you can. Sometimes you can’t do enough, and sometimes you end up doing too much, but in the end it all balances out. The Beatles had it right: the love you take is equal to the love you make. You laugh when they’re happy, you comfort them and share their pain when they’re sad. When they accomplish something, you celebrate, and when they fail, you offer to help pick up the pieces and dust them off.
Valentine’s Day celebrates the one aspect of love that becomes the muddiest in relationships: romance. In a relationship, love manifests itself in so many different ways, from not yelling at your partner for leaving the seat up to cleaning the dishes when it’s not your turn. It’s not just about romance, it’s about compassion and understanding that this person is in your life and if you can make his or her life just a bit easier by giving of yourself, then that’s a good thing to do.
Maybe Valentine’s Day does matter for that narrow reason: the qualities that got us into that mess, the breasts, the hair, the way you kiss each other, the caresses, the smiles lighting up, need to be celebrated.
Or maybe, as our mom’s used to say about “Children’s Day”, every day is Valentine’s Day!
Fueled by guilt, and fear of loss.
It’s bullshit and I don’t subscribe.
Valentine’s Day is major BS.
that she’s so nonchalant about: if they’re late, then suddenly its VERY IMPORTANT!
C’mon man. By your strict standard of authenticity we could never collectively acknowledge anything. I think this shows why ‘the left’ so often fails to muster that much-ballyhooed value of leftism: “solidarity.” I see that the quasi libertarian or ‘rugged individual’ doesn’t cotton to parades or award shows or tourist traps, but when does that just devolve into misanthropy? Hermits don’t like holidays either; that’s why they completely withdraw from society, dig a hole and live their little lives in it.
The curmudgeonly ‘virtue’ of “not needing Christmas to acknowledge the birth of Christ” or not needing Veterans day to publicly and collectively acknowledge veterans – it says a lot more about you, and probably ‘the left,’ than it does about the b.s. commercialism of Valle day.
That being said… Yep, I hate Valentines day too.
I’m proud to say last year both of us forgot our anniversary.
Whenever a guy insisted on flowers I would ask for potted plants. Honestly, which is going to last longer and which does something more than wither in a few days? Some symbol!
My biggest disappointment gift was a 3.5 – 4.0 ft tall, extremely cute teddy bear. My immediate thought was, where the hell am I going to put this? Followed by, do I look like I’m f—ing eight years-old?
Edit: I’m not saying you’re a bad person for celebrating it, but if you celebrate it at all, do it because you want to.
A nice bouquet costs more than a great potted plant!
Cynics. Pshaw!
Today I received the best Valentine one could ever imagine. Today, to everyone’s delight and my great joy, my first grandchild, age six months, planted several big sloppy wet kisses on my cheek.
“”Those are my principles. If you don’t like them I have others.” ~Groucho Marx (1890-1977)
Wow there’s a lot of cynics out there. So called “Hallmark” holidays are what you make of them. There’s plenty of ways to celebrate a holiday without falling victim to “commercialism”. Make your own Halloween costume. Paint your own Easter eggs (rather than buying plastic ones), and make your own Valentine.
If you’re with someone who is expecting something for Valentine’s Day and this makes you resentful, I would suspect that there is a problem in the relationship, not with the holiday.
And I know you were probably joking, but just for the record – I am single with no children and I feel absolutely no shame at a silent phone. I spent Saturday and Sunday with good, long-time friends, and tonight I will spend with my parents. I feel loved and lucky, and certainly no shame.
“The stars at night, are big and bright…”
telling her some true things as simply as I could put them. They made me cry with joy and gratitude when I wrote them, and made her cry when she read the note. If today being a special feast day for lovers was my motivation to take a moment to express myself, well, I’ll take it just the same.
Shortly after the stroke of midnight into 2/14, I also wrote a little note to a dear and lovely lady friend of mine who is grieving a recent parting of ways with her boyfriend. I talked about things yet to come, and things that might have been, and the power of lover’s sorrow to stoke her artistic fire. As it turned out, today was a heavy day for her and my message was well received. Mark another point for Saint Valentine there.
No capitalists profited from my observance of VD this year, except inasmuch as any person’s joy benefits everyone.
As you yourself intuit, K.E., there are two sides; I’d just like to point out that the perception that these commercially promoted ritual holidays are consumerist in origin and action is not cynicism, as some of the commenters here are suggesting, but critical thinking.
If you recognize that the planet is drowning in human waste, then there’s less reason to hold festivals of conspicuous consumption harmless.
I’d say we give the axe to the kind of Valentine’s Day that you so eloquently describe in the form of a joke. Notwithstanding the many men and women who truly love and appreciate each other, Valentine’s Day is more like a commercialized, patriarchal, stereotypical “Pretend to Love a Woman†day, at least, the way you described it in the first part.
Btw, you make it sound as if only women need romance and appreciation. Where on earth did you pick up that idea? Romance requires two genders as far as I know. I mean, you can’t very well romance yourself, can you? And yes, I do buy flowers every week, but that’s to cheer up my kitchen.
That said, if one truly wishes to celebrate a woman then why not have a “C†day. In fact, I wish every day was a “C†day. A “C†day is the true way to a woman’s heart. Unfortunately, many men lack “The Skill†as it does not come naturally but needs to be learned. So here’s my “Special Day†gift to those who wish to expand their knowledge and understanding of how to truly please a woman.
Real men don’t buy sex. ~ Dallas Cowboy Jay Ratliff
eom
Real men don’t buy sex. ~ Dallas Cowboy Jay Ratliff
…now that’s a present I can get behind, but, ummmm…I’m assuming your husband was not the father.
Mazel tov on your kinder.
Being a man, I could not possibly do justice to the women’s perspective on Valentine’s day. I tried at some point, IIRC, to turn the tables, but really…never having been a woman it would be near impossible for me to write something off the top of my male-patterned bald head like that!
After all, events happen. Fourth of July, St Patrick’s Day, Christmas, birthdays…all commemorate events. I have no problem with these, even if they get lost in a fair amount of commercialism too.
“Holidays” like Father’s or Mother’s day, not so much.
By the way, the only other holiday I spoke about was Thanksgiving, which I’m pretty sure commemorates a distant and barely relevant event in American history, however has been co-opted as a signal that the Christmas shopping season is upon us, and is less about celebrating co-operation among potential adversaries and more about keeping Uncle Bob from getting too deep into the liquor cabinet.
So I’m not sure where you got my curmudgeon on about Christmas or Veterans’ Day.
But I’d bet my bottom dollar that 100% of veterans would prefer we acknowledge their sacrifices the other 364 days than throw a sparsely attended parade in the middle of November. A better argument you could have made would have been Labor Day. There’s one I might have agreed with you I needed to take a closer look at
From Garrison Keillor:
February 14th was a convenient time for the Christian Church to have a holiday because it coincided with an ancient fertility festival that was celebrated every year between February 13th and February 15th. The festival was called Lupercalia, and it was partially to honor Lupa, the legendary wolf who suckled the orphaned twin brothers Romulus and Remus, who went on to found the city of Rome. Lupercalia itself was building on an even older festival, called Februa, associated with cleansing and fertility — it is from Februa that we get the name February. For Lupercalia, goats and a dog were sacrificed, and then two high-ranking young men representing Romulus and Remus went up to the altar and had their faces smeared with the sacrificial blood. After the blood was wiped off with wool dipped in milk, the men stripped naked, cut strips of skin from the sacrificed goats, and ran around the city, joined by other enthusiastic young men. Women who wanted to get pregnant would position themselves so that they could be flogged on the backside with these strips, which was supposed to cleanse them and make them fertile. Lupercalia was a very popular festival, and it was still widely practiced even during the fifth century, more than 150 years after the Roman Empire was officially Christian. It is easy to see why the Church would have been happy to have a different sort of holiday take its place.”
“Lord! What Fools these Mortals be!”
I’m truly interested in this theme. Is there perhaps a newsletter or website I might subscribe to?
Hope not, Actor. No, I think #1 Son can claim the honours there. Thanks for the good wishes.
“”Those are my principles. If you don’t like them I have others.” ~Groucho Marx (1890-1977)
“Lord! What Fools these Mortals be!”
I can see a whole new Valentine’s Day line here. The pop-ups could be spectacular! Happy Lupercalia everyone!
“”Those are my principles. If you don’t like them I have others.” ~Groucho Marx (1890-1977)
It was not restricted to certain days of the year though.