I really didn’t want to dedicate an entire blog post to this
mushy nonsense but tradition and a bizarre sense of obligation has forced me to
do just that. Anyone who has not been
fortunate to live in a cave without Internet access and/ or other connections
to the outside world will have noted that International Make Singletons
Everywhere Feel Bad Day (otherwise known as Valentine’s Day) is almost upon
us. For the less commercially enslaved
readers among you, Valentine’s Day is that special time of year where we all
forget to nag our partners about the gigantic pile of washing up that they have
still not done and the toenails they have left wallowing in the bath. Instead our nagging endeavours turn to hints
about overly expensive meals in “intimate” Italian restaurants and “romantic”
Valentine’s breaks in some country manor house. We approach the day with rising anticipation and a sense of
certain expectation; surely, this time he or she will have pushed the boat out
and have planned something really special.
You know they have been avoiding the whole thing BUT that is just so
that they don’t give away the surprise.
You have booked the whole weekend off work and told anyone who cares
enough to pretend to listen of your impending Valentine’s treat.
Then the day comes round.
You awake to no breakfast in bed.
Indeed, your partner is still grunting and snoring next to you whilst
whispering something lewd about Kate Middleton/ Prince Harry/ Russell Crowe/
Harriet Harman/ John Prescott/ Anne Hathaway (delete as appropriate) and
licking their lips. Naturally, you go
downstairs expecting that they have somehow miraculously smuggled in your
surprise the previous night and have left it somewhere obvious for you to
find. Like a child on Christmas
morning, you dash downstairs unsure and excited about what you might find. A mad dash around the house reveals
nothing. Not a sausage. Only a headless mouse (at least Tiddles has
remembered) and a puddle of cat piss next to the fridge. You turn from this feline trail of
destruction to see your dishevelled looking partner squinting at you through
eyes full of sleep and fresh morning sunlight.
Outraged you demand whether they even know what day it is. Nonplussed, they reply that it is Friday and
run off to get ready for work. Almost
hysterical you yell after the that it is Valentines Day and demand to know why
it is that everybody else’s partner ALWAYS does something romantic and yet they
always forget to. You then follow said
partner to the bottom of the stairs where you proceed to list the various
wonderful things that friends’ partners have done for them for Valentines
Day. Every intimate meal, every
surprise holiday gets a mention. All
the while your partner seems way too preoccupied with where they have left
their shoes/skirt/belt/handbag, which just gets you more enraged. By the time you have said your goodbyes you
are wondering how you can ever admit this embarrassment to your friends and
colleagues, who will now think you are a complete failure because your partner
couldn’t even be bothered to show how much they love you by wasting their money
on a piece of card sporting a pair of smooching teddies and a vomit inducing
verse. Woe is you. The fact that they have spent the past year
holding back your hair as you vomit after consuming your bodyweight in tequila
and listening to you as you pour out your latest workplace drama pales in
significance next to the absence of a creepy looking teddy holding an embossed
love heart. Because when it comes to relationships, it is the small
manufactured things that count.
Later on that evening you return home to find a battered
looking bouquet of roses and a large soppy card with the 99p price tag still
attached. You peek inside just to see a
generic soppy verse that has been seen by countless other people that very same
day and your partner’s name at the bottom.
Still, you are not happy. They
did this only because you nagged them to do it and even then, it was done in a
rush and with very little thought. It
was done purely to placate you and to give them an easier life. Just look at the state of the flowers!
I have spent so much of my adult life hating things like
Valentines Day. I celebrated it a
couple of times when I was a teenager and had my first boyfriend but that was
before I realised how stupid the whole thing was. I understand the whole thing about wanting to tell somebody that
you love them but why does that have to be done on an allocated day and why
does it have to involve buying them random tat and insisting that they do the
same in return? If you genuinely love
somebody, why do you need an allocated day to remind you to spend time with
them? Surely, it means more when
somebody does something because they want to rather than because they know that
you will expect them to. I don’t know, maybe I am just being a tad naïve here
but I’m not really sure how a person’s willingness to contribute towards
Hallmark’s profits and their feelings towards their partners are linked.
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