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My feelings about Valentine's Day can really be summarized in three words:
It's a sham.
Full disclosure: yes, I'm single, and yes, I'm not bananas about that fact. But here's the thing: I haven't always been single on Valentine's Day -- and I've pretty much always thought it was dumb.
I'm all in favor of love -- don't get me wrong. And of demonstrating love to the beloved object, and of publicly acknowledging status as beloved of one another. I've got nothing against the ideals encapsulated in the essay I followed a link to the other day. "I like that [he] reaches for my hand as soon as we get out of the car and keeps it firmly in his grasp everywhere we go, and I like that he sends flowers to my workplace, and I really like the fact that he doesn't ask me to walk several steps behind him in public", the writer says. Yes! Great. All things to like. "And I like Valentine's Day," she goes on, "when people publicly acknowledge their relationships" -- and I screech to a halt.
Because the idea that there is one day a year for public acknowledgement of relationships bothers me almost to the point of offense. Almost, but not quite, because I know that nobody is actually suggesting that it is only Valentine's Day when such things are appropriate -- but if it's not, then why single out a day for it? (See also Christmas and the spirit of charity for those less fortunate. If I were a soup kitchen, I'd point out that people aren't any more homeless just because it's December, you know what I mean?) Put another way, it's not that it bothers me, as a Single Person, Woe, to see people sending flowers or singing telegrams or cards or boxes of candy or whatever. I think doing nice things for the person you love is fantastic. I just really don't like the idea that a dozen roses on February 14 is somehow more romantic than a dozen roses on any other day of the year, or the related idea that any attached person (usually a man) who fails to produce cargo on 14 February has done his girlfriend wrong. I don't, in short, like the manufactured sentimentality of the day.
None of this is to say that I believe people who choose to dress in red and patronize the florists and jewelers and stationers and confectioners and restaurateurs on Valentine's Day shouldn't do so. They should do so whenever they want, has been my point, and if 14 February is when they want, more power to them. I just wish it could all be spread out, that people would choose to commemorate things that had actual meaning to them, rather than buying into this thing because they feel like they're supposed to. When someone sends me flowers, I prefer him to be motivated by something more related to me and to him than the fact that a calendar told him he should.
It's a sham.
Full disclosure: yes, I'm single, and yes, I'm not bananas about that fact. But here's the thing: I haven't always been single on Valentine's Day -- and I've pretty much always thought it was dumb.
I'm all in favor of love -- don't get me wrong. And of demonstrating love to the beloved object, and of publicly acknowledging status as beloved of one another. I've got nothing against the ideals encapsulated in the essay I followed a link to the other day. "I like that [he] reaches for my hand as soon as we get out of the car and keeps it firmly in his grasp everywhere we go, and I like that he sends flowers to my workplace, and I really like the fact that he doesn't ask me to walk several steps behind him in public", the writer says. Yes! Great. All things to like. "And I like Valentine's Day," she goes on, "when people publicly acknowledge their relationships" -- and I screech to a halt.
Because the idea that there is one day a year for public acknowledgement of relationships bothers me almost to the point of offense. Almost, but not quite, because I know that nobody is actually suggesting that it is only Valentine's Day when such things are appropriate -- but if it's not, then why single out a day for it? (See also Christmas and the spirit of charity for those less fortunate. If I were a soup kitchen, I'd point out that people aren't any more homeless just because it's December, you know what I mean?) Put another way, it's not that it bothers me, as a Single Person, Woe, to see people sending flowers or singing telegrams or cards or boxes of candy or whatever. I think doing nice things for the person you love is fantastic. I just really don't like the idea that a dozen roses on February 14 is somehow more romantic than a dozen roses on any other day of the year, or the related idea that any attached person (usually a man) who fails to produce cargo on 14 February has done his girlfriend wrong. I don't, in short, like the manufactured sentimentality of the day.
None of this is to say that I believe people who choose to dress in red and patronize the florists and jewelers and stationers and confectioners and restaurateurs on Valentine's Day shouldn't do so. They should do so whenever they want, has been my point, and if 14 February is when they want, more power to them. I just wish it could all be spread out, that people would choose to commemorate things that had actual meaning to them, rather than buying into this thing because they feel like they're supposed to. When someone sends me flowers, I prefer him to be motivated by something more related to me and to him than the fact that a calendar told him he should.
