Yes, it's the day for chocolate, hearts, roses, and enough saccharine-filled love to make the Romance Classics Channel turn its head and politely vomit into the potted plant by the door. It's the day that Hallmark, Whitman and FTD execs furiously yank themselves over, hoping to ejaculate a liquid jackpot of sales. Uhm... on a side note, I guess I should point out that last sentence is all about completely metaphorical masturbation, but I'm perfectly fine with the mental imagery if you are.
The flower, candy and card companies might not have created Valentine's Day, but they have turned into their primary commercial marketing orgy, right ahead of some of the other holidays they've created to try to reel in everyone's hard-earned cash. And you know what holidays I mean. The ones that especially target people with a surfeit of money and a guilt complex to buy for anyone and everyone for fear of missing someone. The ones that are called Hallmark Holidays for a reason.
Like "Secretary's-- excuse me, Administrative Professional's-- Day."
"Sweetest Day."
"Grandparents' Day."
And my personal favorite, "Christmas."
Now, my thoughts on the Valentine's Day holiday have always been pretty iffy, as you might guess from the above paragraphs, but for the sake of argument, let me reiterate them.
I am not anti-Valentine's Day.
That statement alone should come as a surprise to everyone, and not just because it's a grammatically hideous double-negative and obviously proves I'm a hack writer. I don't think Valentine's Day should be slapped down as some no-count cynical corporate heartstring-tugger holiday, the way Emo Nation apparently does. After all, compared to Sweetest Day, Valentine's Day has a long and storied and totally fucking uncontrived history. And as my Lovely Fiancee™ can hopefully attest, I am still to some degree a romantic at heart, even if it tends to work a lot better in my mind than in practice. I really see nothing wrong with setting aside a day to celebrate romantic love, in the same way that Greeks used to sacrifice bulls to appease-- and call blessings from-- Aphrodite. It's a wonderfully pagan thing to do.
Now, yes, I much prefer citrus to chocolate, prefer my flowers in-ground rather than in-bouquet, and-- from a strictly decorating point of view-- have absolutely no use for reds, pinks or hearts. And I really do utterly hate the way Hallmark, 1-800-Flowers, Vermont Teddy Bears, Helzberg Diamonds and Victoria's Secret have turned the holiday into a huge commercial industry. I hate that they push Valentine's Day like it's some glorious slice of Americana and that you're a pinko commie if you don't buy your significant other something or several somethings, preferably from their stores. But to be fair, every business that hinges on sales does that with every holiday. The only people besides postal workers and government employees who celebrate Presidents Day are furniture stores, who try to lure people in with their Lincoln-look-alikes. I can't really damn Valentine's Day simply because of its crassly capitalistic nature.
Oh, but I do despise one other thing about Valentine's Day.
At its very heart (ha ha! Another pun!), Valentine's Day is a holiday for the Haves to rub it in the noses of the Have-Nots. And that sucks big donkey.
This is the day where if you're in love and that love is returned, you are most likely declaring it with the strident, rich tone of a symphony. You're striving to make the day perfect, and not at all caring what unattached pond scum may be hearing you natter on about how wonderful the day is, how much you've spent, how wonderful everything is because you're in love. And when you're in love, of course, everything is right in the world. And that blinding ignorance is why you also probably don't realize that those sullenly unattached people are very likely plotting your demise.
I can say this now with the bitterness of experience, having been a Have-Not for most of my adult life. And at that point in time, especially during my more selfish young adulthood, I hated Valentine's Day. Absolutely hated it. Hated it like a Goth hates sunlight. Hated it like a vegan member of PETA hates my dinner plate.
I was Joe Fuckavalentine, the same sardonic, acrimonious type I am now, only younger, unattached, and pretty pissed off about it. I was the guy who got the Let's Just Be Friends line trotted out by anyone I had a remote desire to ask on a date. I was the proverbial Nice Guy Finishing Last, right behind the stereotypical gangster wannabe and the third-string varsity linebacker. I was proof positive that the old canard about women appreciating brain and personality more was complete and total bullshit. I was one of those types that received a valentine every year for one of precisely three reasons:
1.) Because everyone in class received one, and for all my strangeness, I was actually still a member of the class
2.) Because I was the only kid under 20 at home, and Mom wanted to instill in me an appreciation in the wonders of love, just on the off chance I might actually opt to leave my room to find a woman and help prove to her I wasn't ascetic, psychopathic or gay.
3.) Because the local pharmacy had a 2-for-1 sale on chocolate while my sisters was there, and they thought it might look crass to hoard it all to themselves.
I've been there. I know what it is to hate Valentine's Day. I know, even now, what a hideous waste of money it is, and I know what an over-commercialized hype machine from the greeting card companies it has become.
And yet: I can't bring myself to totally hate what it represents.
What I do hate about Valentine's Day is the idea we have to be keyed into a holiday for what it represents. What I hate is that we apparently need the greeting card manufacturers, the chocolate cookeries, the stuffed bear seamstresses, the floral arrangement artists and the jewelers to wave a "Remember Me" day under our nose to remind us to show someone we love that we appreciate them. What I hate is that everyone has become tied up in the notion that showing love involves only those things that appear on a credit card bill.
And on that note, I call bullshit. You don't need a holiday for that. You can appreciate the people you love, every day, without reservation. You can show them how much they mean to you without putting them into a chocolate coma. You can show them how much they mean to you without bundling up a bunch of roses of the proper variety and color according to some stupid chart somewhere.
And you can just fucking tell them how much they mean to you. Any day. Every day.
Not just February 14th.
And on those same lines, a quick note to my Lovely Fiancee™: Today is very special to me, not just because it means there are exactly 240 days until you become my Lovely Wife®, but because of the fact that you're a part of it. Every day we've been together up to now has been very special to me because you've been a part of it, and every day from now forward will be very special because you will be a part of it. I will never be able to adequately express what you mean to me, so I hope on some level you already know.
-MH
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