Valentine's Day Will Be No More!

Valentine's Day, Valentine's Day ... how do I loathe thee??! First off, it's a "holiday" (and I use that term loosely) that Hallmark led the charge on mass producing, designed to force people into buying sappy, dumb ass cards with very bad poetry in them along with all the crap that has to go with the card. I'd reckon that very few men can get away with just a card. Roses, boquets of various flowers, jewelry, electronic gadgets, dinner out, a movie etc. Turn on the TV the week leading up to Valentine's Day and you'll know what's expected, and the cutsey "personal" stories masquarading as news are likely to make you want to gag if not full-out vomit.

Guys, just try and buck the tradition and watch how your girlfriend/wife reacts. That scowl and bitchy disposition is no accident. She thinks she deserves this treatment because, hey - it's frickin' Valentine's Day. In some bizarre alternative universe that I like to pretend isn't earth, this means you owe her something. You could show her every day of every year that you love her in a billion ways, but forget Valentine's Day and your ass is grass. Hmmm, doesn't sound very healthy when analyzed, does it? In fact, it sounds pretty dysfunctional and messed up. If the guy is lucky, he might get some later on that night, and that's a big IF with many women I've known. That's his reward for being a good boy and doing what was expected of him.

Secondly, this so-called holiday does a terrific job of making anyone who's not in a relationship feel like utter crap, the dregs of society - despised, unwanted, and unloved. This holiday is not geared for you so go away. We don't care about you because you're not out spending money on useless junk that nobody's going to care about a year from now let alone the day after. You have no one to give things to. You're nobody until you're with somebody. To take it a step further, I'd also say you're nobody unless you're married to somebody. That, my friends, is one of the saddest facts I've found living on this planet.

It puts this tremendous pressure on people, especially women, to hurry up and push for marriage at all costs whether it makes sense or not, whether they actually love the person or want to spend the rest of their life with him or her. Nobody wants to die a spinster or, as I like to refer to myself, the crazy cat lady. I've had a few women say to me when I make the crazy cat lady joke -- well, at least you can say you were married. Yes, a marriage that ended in divorce. That worked out well for me, didn't it? I always get a slightly annoyed don't-bother-me-with-downer-facts-like-that sister, because the fact is you got to have the big party, wear the white dress (representative of the virgin you're not), and be the star of the day. So even if you don't stay together with that person, at least you got to say you did it. 

I laughed the first time I heard this comeback because I remember it as one of the lines from When Harry Met Sally. Sally had just gone through a break-up and her girlfriends are trying to get her back in the game again, and when Sally says she's not ready yet because she's still grieving she gets big eyes from her audience. "Well, don't wait too long, you remember Ken Bruckman? He got divorced and everybody said give him time, don't rush him. And then he died." Sally, looking completely mystified, looks at her girlfriend and says "so you're saying I should go out and marry someone incase he may die?" To which her other girlfriend responds: "At least you could say you were married." Tell me Hollywood doesn't imitate life.

We don't need to wonder why the divorce rate is so high in this country, folks. Many if not most people get married for the wrong reasons. If you cut through all the crap, it gets down to people not wanting to be alone. We're deathly afraid of it. Life is a race to nab somebody before you die, and the clock is ticking the whole time. So, Valentine's Day essentially serves as an annoying alarm to remind one of just that: Hurry up!  Find somebody quick or you may die alone!

And if you are alone? I'll play you the episode of a multitude of TV shows where a lonely corpse lays in a coffin and nobody comes to pay their respects (Six Feet Under is a good reference for that actually). Hell, I'll play you Eleanor Rigby, the bittersweet sadness of living and dying alone, with no one really realizing or recognizing that you've died. "Father MacKenzie wipes the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave ... no one was saved." The images are everywhere, it's a non-stop barrage with the media beating the drum. In the end, I find it very humorous because we all die alone -- married or not. That's a fact. You don't get to take somebody with you. It's not like a second grade trip to the restroom. ;)

I often wish that I lived in a healthier society that wasn't so hell-bent on forcing everyone into square holes. That's the other piece to this dysfunctional Valentine's Day puzzle. People don't want to be lonely and people just want to fit in. To fit in is to be accepted, approved of, and loved. "All of my friends are getting married and having kids." "My family doesn't approve of us living together so we're going to get married."

There's a multitude of reasons people use to convince themselves that there's a perfectly rational reason why they want this for themselves. Many of us are constantly looking for acceptance, and in order to gain it, you must follow The Rules, as I like to call them. You can't win in the game called life and not play by the rules. Remember the board game Life?  You have path A, B, and C ... and it's up to a wheel spin - not you - which you end up on.  I'm pretty sure if you look up the word metaphor online, this example is out there.  Talk about getting trained up at a young age. Hurry, get the brain washing machine going before they can think for themselves!  I was known to kick my spouse and children out of the car if I was unfortunate enough to land on either space ... my goal was always to finish the game with just the one peg plugged into the car, and if the wheel was kind to me -- with a helluva lot of money to boot. ;)

People are individuals and we're all different, but things aren't setup to encourage that let alone allow it to blossom. I admire people who fight hard against society "norms" because I believe them to be very strong; they don't bend to what people want or expect them to do. They stand firm and resolute in what they believe. In many situations, these people end up being the "outcasts" of society, and I find that very sad. There's a very real penalty to be paid for individual expressionism. Don't ever think otherwise. We may laugh at movies like the Stepford Wives, but there's a sinister undertone to it that is very much alive and well in our world.

So now I've finally said it. One thing I myself will stand firm and resolute on -- I will go to my grave never celebrating a single Valentine's Day, alone or not. In fact, it may go on my tombstone: "Here lies the Crazy Cat Lady Who Said Screw Valentine's Day till the Day She Died!"