Valentines day.

[tanaise]

What really gets me about it isn't just the artificiality of it, but the homogenous nature of this artificial holiday. You get someone *red roses* because that's the flower you give on V-day. You buy her heart shaped boxes of drug store chocolate, because that's the candy you give. I want violets and a Lake Champlain Raspberry Truffle bar. Do you know how hard it would be to find violets now? do you know how much effort that would mean Mr. X had spent on me? As opposed to the flower that says "I didn't care enough to actually find out what your favorite flower is" And let's face it. No one's favorite flowers are scentless red rosebuds that will never bloom but rather wilt pathetically within a day.

The way I figure, you have three options for Vday. Tacky, which involves a leather rose and a bag of M&Ms. Thoughtful, which involves the flowers they like, the chocolate they like, perhaps a thoughtful gift that they will like. Or just being sweet to them same as you would any other day, just because they deserve sweetness.

Me? I have no one special to be thoughtful or sweet to me. my mother however seems to have tacky covered but good. (my mother's motto: Tacky: it's not just for glue anymore.) She's found me another valentine's animal from Walmart. Last year was a pink elephant. The year before was a fuzzy rhino with a heart stuck to his hip.

And really, I don't need a holiday to tell me I'm alone, and I don't need a holiday to tell me this is wrong. I'm not delighted to be single, I'm quite often lonely, but that's my business, not the holiday's. And maybe I wouldn't be quite so lonely if I wasn't being told so often that I should be lonely. Though I think probably I would be. The cat just doesnt' cut it, I want someone I can tell about the day I had and all that.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Valentine's Day? There is no Valentine's Day. Friday, now. That I can celebrate.

But. Um. I actually really like roses. Have some in the yard at home growing out of control and all prickly when I try to hack them back. Being Hannah's plants, however, they've had to get with the what-doesn't-kill-you program.

[tanaise.livejournal.com]

See, roses are okay as a gift *if* the givee likes roses. Heck, I love roses too when they're not the closed up dark red buds with no smell at all. I love tea roses and those pale lilac ones, and really pretty much any rose you can grow in a garden. I just don't like the 'traditional' red roses that they sell everywhere.

[tanaise.livejournal.com]

Being Hannah's plants, however, they've had to get with the what-doesn't-kill-you program.

Have you considered this might be part of the reason boyfriends are hard to find? :P

[(Anonymous)]

If a guy can't get himself a glass of water when I'm not around, I think he's disqualified from potential boyfriend status.

[wintersweet.livejournal.com]

>>You get someone *red roses* because that's the flower you give on V-day.

Heh. Yay for my Clint.
Anyway, you can celebrate Hatemonger's Day if you like. ;p

[tanaise.livejournal.com]

Everyday is Hatemonger's Day lately. Stupid Shrub.

Re:

[wintersweet.livejournal.com]

This is true. Kind of takes the fun out of it.

[teapot-farm.livejournal.com]

With you on the homogeneity issue (is that how you spell it? Not 'issue', the word before it). Not just for Valentine's day either (which this year will involve nice food, rude DVDs and whatever present I receive) but any present giving. One of the final straws with my last relationship was getting for my birthday chocolate cherries-in-kirsch (nice, but nothing I'd ever expressed an interest in or eaten before, even), cigars (I smoked at the time, but this was largely because the ex found women smoking cigars erotic) and a Chinese-zodiac-sign mug of the type that he was getting *everyone* as birthday presents because he thought they were really nice, which they were, but that was so not the point.
I smashed the mug on the fire-escape railings when I got rid of him. It was very, very satisfying.

[podling]

Yeah, I totally agree with both of you. I mean, what does that say about how well they know you? Or how much they like you? I had a boyfriend (briefly, one time) who gave me this little stuffed devil with "be mine" stitched on him and a box of chocolates. Now. I liked stuffed animals, but I like non-tacky ones, and this was like the height of tackiness and not a soft toy or anything. I don't like chocolate that much (shut up, all of you, I don't care!), a box of mixed chocolates will sit in my house for *months*. So, hello, inappropriate? Granted, he understood little about me at all, even by the end (which was about a week after, heh) but still. I threw the devil out. The stuffed one, I mean. Go you for the smashing though!!!

[malinaldarose.livejournal.com]

But...I like roses! I adore violets, too, but I really like roses. Actually, if I were to get roses, it'd be a Really Nice Gesture because Someone To Whom I Am Married never buys flowers because He thinks they are a Waste Of Money. I'd really like to get flowers occasionally.

[podling]

Well, try to tell him that you're supporting US Agriculture by buying cut flowers and that it's very important in the greater scheme of things to make sure that farmers get to eat too. Okay, so maybe that won't work. I feel your pain though...

[phantom_wolfboy]

If we don't buy flowers the terrorists win!

Re:

[podling]

Exactly!!! Heh.

[tanaise.livejournal.com]

If you like roses and he knows that and he gets you your favorite color--I'm all about that. If he doesn't know you like them and just picks up a bunch of the *nasty* red ones because they're closest, that's bad. There's a significant difference between thoughtful and lazy.

[sage-and-sea.livejournal.com]

Ditto. The Person to whom I am Nearly Married doesn't believe in giving cut flowers because they die and she finds it a bad omen. I, however, would love some flowers!

[podling]

Well, I mean, truthfully, they're dead before they're given to you at all, or on life support at the very least. But they're grown to die, and to appreciate them is to appreciate the brief burst of life that every one of us is given. A small time of beauty in a harsh world.

Umm. Sorry. Long day at work... I do like getting flowers though.

[piratejenny.livejournal.com]

I'm so with you. I totally hate Valentine's Day. Passionately. My evening of choice usually involves watching slasher movies--fits my mood.

[kk1raven.livejournal.com]

And maybe I wouldn't be quite so lonely if I wasn't being told so often that I should be lonely.

I'm with you there. I'm tired of the media implying that I should be lonely without a boyfriend or husband. I'm tired of the implication that there is something wrong with me if I don't have someone to shower me with expensive, useless gifts for an articial holiday. I'm perfectly capable of feeling bad all on my own without the media and various other people pushing me.

just to be difficult

[astrophysicat.livejournal.com]

I will attempt to defend Valentine's Day. In all it's commercial, homogenized glory.

Lots of guys, don't even know what romance is. This is their clue-by-four that they have to occasionally do something nice and romantic, that popcorn and football watching is not enough. And it even comes complete with clear instructions on the absolute minimum that they have to do.

And while it's hard to justify being sad that you don't get spontaneous little romantic surprises from your loved one, if he's such a schmuck that he doesn't even do it once a year, you have righteous indignation of a certified holiday on your side.

If you feel oppressed by Valentine's Day, that's what you're reading into it. All it really is is a big neon sign to people who are in love that they should put some effort out into making that clear. Of course it also reminds people who don't have a "valentine" that other people do have valentines, but how is that news?

Of course it's cheesy and homogenized, it's hallmark american culture. So? They do that to every holiday, they do that to every emotion, it doesn't make the emotions that are there any less real.

[tikimama.livejournal.com]

I have no realy strong feelings about V-Day (I know, you're amazed). I think it's quite a silly holiday, so obviously engineered for Clueless Straight Men (whom I dislike on principle). Having been in the same relationship for many years (like an albatross around my neck, but in a nice way) I don't get worked up about it. I don't know that we ever did. melintur, being of the nancy boy persuasion, was always obscenely romantic--spontaneous flowers, poems, cards, gifts, homemade chocolate cheesecakes (which he once drove 400 miles to surpise me with, yes, my dorm-mates hated me). But never big V-day stuff.

However, as the years went on, we've slowed down. Plus, he gets laid pretty much whenever now, so there's no reason for that. Because that is the whole point of the holiday, isn't it? To fool your whomever into thinking you are thoughtful and romantic and cherish them above all others so that they can get some. Hmmm, maybe I am bitter about the holiday after all.

I bought LOTR valentines. V-Day HoYay!

[toratigris.livejournal.com]

I abhor Valentines Day. With a fiery, passionate loathing.

Though it is good for one thing. I now know that if I'm dating a guy who will buy me choclates for Valentine's so that he can eat half of them, or a piece of lingere not because I want it but because he wants to see me in it, yet he still considers that a "gift", then obviously he's a guy I should dump ASAP.

So I suppose it has the function of weeding out the losers...

And yes, I don't mind receiving nice red roses (especially the kind that have petals with deep red tops and silvery undersides, but I don't know what they're called), getting cheap red rosebuds because that's the default and the guy lacks enough imagination or thoughtfulness to come up with something better is a different matter entirely.

And I'd infinitely rather be with a guy who will spontaneously do something sweet and romantic because he wants to, than a guy who does something cliched for Valentine's because he knows he's supposed to and thinks he will "get in trouble" if he doesn't.

I'm thinking that any future S.O. and I may have to have an agreement that we ignore Valentine's altogether, and promise to pick some other random day and surprise the other person with something sweet and romantic.