![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
keep your hearts and flowers
So it's time to trot out the humbuggery (which sounds way more obscene than it should) again, as I've done for the past two years, and say Valentine's Day is a load of crap.
I haven't always been (and won't always be) single, but I'll always say Valentine's Day as celebrated in the modern west is hooey. The florists and the confectioners and the jewelers and the stationers have managed to convince everyone (except, apparently, me, and![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
osymandias and Mr. mecurtin)(ahem, and the_emu [g]) that flowers delivered today are more floral than flowers delivered yesterday or tomorrow. Jewelry is sparklier, and chocolates are more chocolatey, and someone who says 'I love you' today means it more than he'd mean it if he said it on the fourteenth of any other month. I call bullshit. I think there are decent odds that people who say 'I love you' today can never be conclusively proven to have said it for any reason other than they believed they were supposed to. That's the opposite of sincerity.
I have friends who tell me 'Yeah, women say all that, but you watch their boyfriends not send them flowers on Valentine's Day, and look how much trouble they get in.' Which, fair enough, there will always be people who talk a good game but then don't follow through. 'And,' they say, 'would you be annoyed if someone did send you flowers on Valentine's Day? Thought not -- so the smart thing is to do it, right, because ninety-nine percent of women either expect it or don't care.' I suppose it's a decent point. And if someone I wanted to marry proposed to me on Valentine's Day, I don't think I'd say no just on those grounds. But at the same time, I hope that whoever wants to marry me will know me well enough to know that if he proposes on Valentine's Day I'll roll my eyes before saying yes. (He can then choose to go ahead and do it or not, armed with that knowledge, of course. [g])
I haven't always been (and won't always be) single, but I'll always say Valentine's Day as celebrated in the modern west is hooey. The florists and the confectioners and the jewelers and the stationers have managed to convince everyone (except, apparently, me, and
osymandias and Mr. mecurtin)(ahem, and the_emu [g]) that flowers delivered today are more floral than flowers delivered yesterday or tomorrow. Jewelry is sparklier, and chocolates are more chocolatey, and someone who says 'I love you' today means it more than he'd mean it if he said it on the fourteenth of any other month. I call bullshit. I think there are decent odds that people who say 'I love you' today can never be conclusively proven to have said it for any reason other than they believed they were supposed to. That's the opposite of sincerity.I have friends who tell me 'Yeah, women say all that, but you watch their boyfriends not send them flowers on Valentine's Day, and look how much trouble they get in.' Which, fair enough, there will always be people who talk a good game but then don't follow through. 'And,' they say, 'would you be annoyed if someone did send you flowers on Valentine's Day? Thought not -- so the smart thing is to do it, right, because ninety-nine percent of women either expect it or don't care.' I suppose it's a decent point. And if someone I wanted to marry proposed to me on Valentine's Day, I don't think I'd say no just on those grounds. But at the same time, I hope that whoever wants to marry me will know me well enough to know that if he proposes on Valentine's Day I'll roll my eyes before saying yes. (He can then choose to go ahead and do it or not, armed with that knowledge, of course. [g])
no subject
Flowers delivered today may not be more floral than those delivered yesterday or tomorrow, but I would imagine they would be more expensive ;)
no subject
i think my favorite is the one where the couple is in venice (or, if not venice, then a great big square that always makes me think of san marco), and he shouts at the top of his voice, "I LOVE THIS WOMAN!" and she's all horrified and embarrassed, and then he gives her the diamond ring and she hugs him and whispers "I love this man, I love him, I love him". one time i looked up from whatever i was reading during the commercial break and said "... because he buys me jewelry". my dad just about choked on his coffee. :-)
see, on the other hand, i do like the one where the younger couple is walking and they go around the older couple and join hands when they get past them. yes, it's trying to sell diamonds, but it doesn't suggest that love is not love without them. it's sweet about the whole thing, rather than mercenary.
no subject
You're forgetting one minor detail about that wretched commercial:
She is looking at the ring when she repeatedly states that she loves him. It turns my stomach every time!
I'm guessing you haven't seen the Jarred's commercial that airs at Christmas? In that one, soccer mom is admiring her friends' jewelry, with each one saying "my husband went to Jarred." Well, apparently soccer mom's husband didn't get the "go to Jarred" memo, so she greets him with a scowl and dumps food in his drink. Nice. Only slighltly more annoying than the Lexus December to Remember commercials.
i do like the one where the younger couple is walking and they go around the older couple and join hands when they get past them.
That is a well done commercial.
no subject
:-P
no subject
I would dearly love to see a commercial where the protagonist says that her husband doesn't need to buy her love. Never happen, though.
no subject
Me, too. Makes me all misty-eyed. But any "time for the kids to go sledding" or "she'll pretty much have to" diamonds=sex commericals piss. me. off. bad.
I expound more here:http://kid-lit-fan.livejournal.com/236895.html?
no subject
Not that I'm bitter - no, really. I've reached the stage where I just shrug.
xx
no subject
...that's probably just me, though.
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
I hate Valentine's Day. If I liked flowers, then I would rather be sent three bunches on other days for the same cost as would have been spent on this jacked-up crass celebration of fake romance.
Which is an opinion I've held to in the middle of relationships.
As to being annoyed about receiving flowers this day... I've got them twice, and once I was annoyed, and once I wasn't. I was touched and girly and pleased when I was staying with a friend, and her male best friend made a point of bringing us each a dozen roses when he visited on Valentine's Day, even though he'd never met me. I was pissy and bitchy when I was sent flowers by the boyfriend I'd broken up with two months earlier.
I love gifts and love from people I love. But I want it because I like being reminded that I'm in their thoughts. It doesn't mean that if obligation has been shoved down their throat.
8^-
no subject
no subject
no subject
And the whole I-love-him-for-giving-me-costly-jewelry thing - bah!
no subject
it's so completely arbitrary, but everyone just goes along with it because it's The Done Thing. it's demonstrative of one of the things i hate most about people in large groups, i suppose.
no subject
And the reason we had to decide this early on - Valentine's is the day we got together. We actually did not realize this until after the fact (look, we were young, we were horny, who thinks to check the calendar?), and when we did figure it out, we immediately agreed to pretend it happened on a different day. A less red and pink and heart-shaped day. This strategy has worked well for us, and I totally recommend it to you, when you end up with the guy who proposes on Valentine's Day because, hey, that way you get an engagement and a joke.
no subject