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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])
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