Valentine's Day
Feb. 14th, 2006 08:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annwfynI'm sure that many out there are expecting my usual rant on the topic of the evil that is Valentine's Day. After all, I've done it every other year since the age of about 14, sending forth bitterness and bile before it was fashionable to do so. I've upset a boyfriend by saying "cheers" to the chocolates he gave me on Valentine's Day and then taking them with me to rehursal where I proceeded to hand them around. I've upset a potential boyfriend even more by just not noticed the card he carefully tucked under a pile of books on my desk until March. I've projected disdain for the day into the world since I was a teenager being mocked in school for being too ugly to get a Valentine's Day card, and yet this year I've found myself feeling something new.
I think I'm mellowing.
OK, so Valentine's Day isn't entirely my thing. Mostly because I don't like pink very much, and I always feel guilty if someone gives me a stuffed toy that I don't think I'll ever do anything with beyond putting it in a cupboard.* However, this year I don't feel any need to rant about it.
My point of view right now is 'it makes a lot of people rather happy'. OK, so it makes single people feel bad, but as far as I can tell Mother's Day and Father's Day have a much more damaging psychological effect on those who cannot participate** and yet very few people ever seem to feel that that should be banned. I am also coming to the sneaking conclusion that the 'single people feel bad' is more to do with our media's all year round promotion of romantic love as The One True Way To Happiness, and less to do with their inability to receive bad poetry from hallmark. If Cosmo didn't publish regular articles on 'how to catch a man', Hollywood didn't end every movie it made with a kiss and the Daily Mail didn't determinedly try and hint that any unmarried politician is surely of the Simon Hughes persuasion, I suspect the lack of pink pasteboard would be far less distressing.
For a lot of people, Valentine's Day is kinda nice. OK, so you should show the one you love that you love them every day, but Jehovah's Witnesses say that about Christmas (you should always spoil your family with love, why wait til that one day a year) and I'd still savage anyone with my bare teeth who tried to take Christmas away from me. Sometimes it is nice to have an occasion to make a special effort. In the case of Valentine's Day, a day when flowers don't seem over the top, when you feel justified in spending that bit of extra cash, or maybe just a day when all those people who have been bimbling along and comfortably taking their other half for granted get reminded to tell them.
I'm mostly unconvinced that those people should be made to feel guilty, year after year, by the Valentine's Day backlash, which seems to have grown to a size nearly equal to the Valentine's Day hype.*** And yes - within the world I live the two equal moves do seem to be roughly of approximate size. I've seen Last Minute Dot Com ads for Valentine's Day, and some pink hearts in shops, but I've also seen (at last count) four massive rants on LJ about why Valentine's Day is teh evil without anything very positive about it. I've seen newspaper articles about 'how to get a date for Valentine's Day', but I've seen a slew of columnists telling me it's Bad and Wrong and getting all Bridget Jones and righteous on me.
It's a day. It's one day in the year. And for the first time in a long while, I find myself thinking 'aw' when I see couples walking down the street, and the girl is holding roses, coz it's fairly obvious that they've made her pretty damn happy from the smile on her face. I'm probably not going to do anything much for Valentine's Day myself - poverty and a bedridden boyfriend make that unlikely - but I'm not going to resent those that do. It's a day, like any other.
No. This year, I'm really saving up the bile for Mother's Day. I really hope none of you lot are planning on giving that woman who gave birth to you and still have the temerity to be alive anything this year, coz if so I think you should feel ashamed of your participation in a 'make the bereaved feel like sh*t' day.
See! I'm getting in practice already!
*Currently the unholy triumverate of El Oso Diablo, Zachariah my stuffed zebra and the dog jez has had since childhood make up the list of teddies which have gained the ultimate teddy place of 'I know I'm an adult, but I still have those ones on my bed'. Even Rufus - my poor abused bear of many years love - is currently in the less prestigious home of 'old childhood bedroom'.
**Ask anyone who has lost a parent.
*** Shut up. I know I've been very bad on this score. Hypocrisy is not just a temple in Greece. OK?
I think I'm mellowing.
OK, so Valentine's Day isn't entirely my thing. Mostly because I don't like pink very much, and I always feel guilty if someone gives me a stuffed toy that I don't think I'll ever do anything with beyond putting it in a cupboard.* However, this year I don't feel any need to rant about it.
My point of view right now is 'it makes a lot of people rather happy'. OK, so it makes single people feel bad, but as far as I can tell Mother's Day and Father's Day have a much more damaging psychological effect on those who cannot participate** and yet very few people ever seem to feel that that should be banned. I am also coming to the sneaking conclusion that the 'single people feel bad' is more to do with our media's all year round promotion of romantic love as The One True Way To Happiness, and less to do with their inability to receive bad poetry from hallmark. If Cosmo didn't publish regular articles on 'how to catch a man', Hollywood didn't end every movie it made with a kiss and the Daily Mail didn't determinedly try and hint that any unmarried politician is surely of the Simon Hughes persuasion, I suspect the lack of pink pasteboard would be far less distressing.
For a lot of people, Valentine's Day is kinda nice. OK, so you should show the one you love that you love them every day, but Jehovah's Witnesses say that about Christmas (you should always spoil your family with love, why wait til that one day a year) and I'd still savage anyone with my bare teeth who tried to take Christmas away from me. Sometimes it is nice to have an occasion to make a special effort. In the case of Valentine's Day, a day when flowers don't seem over the top, when you feel justified in spending that bit of extra cash, or maybe just a day when all those people who have been bimbling along and comfortably taking their other half for granted get reminded to tell them.
I'm mostly unconvinced that those people should be made to feel guilty, year after year, by the Valentine's Day backlash, which seems to have grown to a size nearly equal to the Valentine's Day hype.*** And yes - within the world I live the two equal moves do seem to be roughly of approximate size. I've seen Last Minute Dot Com ads for Valentine's Day, and some pink hearts in shops, but I've also seen (at last count) four massive rants on LJ about why Valentine's Day is teh evil without anything very positive about it. I've seen newspaper articles about 'how to get a date for Valentine's Day', but I've seen a slew of columnists telling me it's Bad and Wrong and getting all Bridget Jones and righteous on me.
It's a day. It's one day in the year. And for the first time in a long while, I find myself thinking 'aw' when I see couples walking down the street, and the girl is holding roses, coz it's fairly obvious that they've made her pretty damn happy from the smile on her face. I'm probably not going to do anything much for Valentine's Day myself - poverty and a bedridden boyfriend make that unlikely - but I'm not going to resent those that do. It's a day, like any other.
No. This year, I'm really saving up the bile for Mother's Day. I really hope none of you lot are planning on giving that woman who gave birth to you and still have the temerity to be alive anything this year, coz if so I think you should feel ashamed of your participation in a 'make the bereaved feel like sh*t' day.
See! I'm getting in practice already!
*Currently the unholy triumverate of El Oso Diablo, Zachariah my stuffed zebra and the dog jez has had since childhood make up the list of teddies which have gained the ultimate teddy place of 'I know I'm an adult, but I still have those ones on my bed'. Even Rufus - my poor abused bear of many years love - is currently in the less prestigious home of 'old childhood bedroom'.
**Ask anyone who has lost a parent.
*** Shut up. I know I've been very bad on this score. Hypocrisy is not just a temple in Greece. OK?
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no subject
Date: 2006-02-14 08:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-14 08:38 am (UTC)*looks sheepish*
Fixed now.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-14 09:40 am (UTC)I would be touched that you still treasure el Oso Diablo... Except I think it has more to do with his dark powers to enthrall helpless maidens.
Although I do proudly point out that it's one of the few things that I actually paid Full Price for.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-14 09:42 am (UTC)And I'd respond to the rest of your comment if I even knew what Presidents' Day was!
no subject
Date: 2006-02-14 09:49 am (UTC)Mind you, I don't think Jez qualifies as either young or virgin...
no subject
Date: 2006-02-14 11:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-14 08:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-14 10:00 am (UTC)This time last year Ryan and I were broken up for a short time, I can't remember a time when I've cried as much... when my heart was ever so broken.
Now... I'm here in London, and am anxious to see 6pm. No gifts, or romantic dinner at a fancy restaurant... we'll probably sit on the couch and watch a movie or lay in bed and read.. just like yesterday.
In a way, it's like having Valentines Day EVERY day :)
no subject
Date: 2006-02-14 11:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-02-14 11:27 am (UTC)Wait, hang on, that's not right...
no subject
Date: 2006-02-14 09:54 pm (UTC)Largely due to the fact that I have been unable to celebrate it, give gifts, etc., for a good many years.
Humbug.
That is all I have to say about that.
no subject
Date: 2006-02-15 01:17 pm (UTC)Still I think it's good to have those traditions not least because one day we might all be parents ourselves and enjoy being celebrated!
Presidents Day - which my friends in the States are celebrating - is another matter!