The Anti-valentine Valentine

When I was still single and living in London I had a column in a now defunct (I think) magazine called B-asian in which I would pen about virtual dating, bad real dating and how being single in the City was simultaneously super fun and super frustrating :).....this is an edited version of a somewhat cynical piece I wrote for Valentines day ’06.

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February 14th is the international day dedicated to exploiting love and creating an entire day of unrealistic and mass perpetuated pressure.

8am see’s you casually (but really as if your entire life depended on it) “glancing”through the mail, hoping that someone, anyone, sent you One. 8pm see’s you exhausted and without a desk displaying the ubiquitous dozen red roses, wishing you had called in sick and eaten takeout pizza with Oprah.

The reality is, Valentines day is overrated and given too much credence for having anything to do with love. Really, it’s proof of nothing but a great evidentiary bundle of commercial exploitation. Everyone, single and married is sure everyone else got more cards, better gifts, truer love...Happy Hearts Day!

A friend of mine suggested that maybe I was bitter because I don’t have a Valentine this year - but that’s really not it. I am ecstatic for those people who have a significant other and I believe ardently in love and romance, but I do have a serious issue with anything disguised to be either. And that is the root of my issue with Valentine’s Day. I’m just not feeling the love or the romance and if I’m not feeling it then I’m not believing it.

I’m concerned that in the 14th day of the second month obsession with ‘the ugly satin heart on my card is way bigger than yours’ we’ve actually lost any romantic notion of, well, the romance. I think we’ve created a ‘can’t see the wood for the trees’ situation which is infinitely worse than a guy forgetting to buy a bunch of plastic wrapped red discount stickered flowers on his way home from work.

My concern is that we (especially us girls) overvalue some mindless gesture so much more than the stuff that truly means something. For me, that dirty yellow post it greeting you in the mirror on some random morning, telling you that you’re beautiful, totally kicks the ass of a big box of rich tasting expensive chocolates. I think that that autumn day that you both called in sick to work, miraculously got better within an hour and went to a movie in the afternoon and then crunched your way through the first fallen leaves on the walk to the cheap Chinese restaurant across the road is a day you shouldn’t forget. I mean seriously –keep a note of it and remember it, and when it comes around again celebrate it by getting pneumonia.

That, I guess, is my point. That much more important and meaningful are the days that mean something to the two of you –and only the two of you. Those days are your unique February 14ths and that is what makes him your Valentine and that is something you should mark with a big fat red heart on your calendar.

Proviso: Beyond the generic cards, wilted flowers and creepy cuddly toys the original point of Valentine’s is super cool. The notion that on this day you can encouragingly and safely, pen in a card to that hot girl at Jamba Juice or that insanely dorky guy in the internet café that they are under your skin and you wanted them to just know it –whether you tell them it’s from you or not –well now, that…that’s romantic - it’s sexy, it’s ironic, it’s sweet, and above all…it’s a Valentine.

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