The other useless February “holiday”

Oh, like my Groundhog Day post didn’t lend itself to a similar Valentine’s Day post.  Don’t act so shocked.  And yes, I think I posted something similar last year or the year before, but all my posts disappeared late last year, so I’m doing it again.  Shut up and read it.

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This coming Sunday is Valentine’s Day.  Well, lah-dee-FREAKIN’-da.

It’s not like I’m poo-pooing the idea of people celebrating their love for each other- I’m totally for that.  Completely.  I just don’t drink the Valentine’s Day Kool-Aid, that’s all.

For one thing, I know holidays aren’t typically referred to by their initials- nobody says “Happy SPD” on St. Patrick’s Day- but I am more than a little leery of a holiday celebrating love, romance, and relationships that has initials of “VD”.  But besides that, it’s such a contradiction of itself.  In so many people’s minds it’s all about the aforementioned love, romance, and relationship, yet your kids can be your “valentine”.  Your parents can be your “valentine”.  Your grandmother.  Your DOG.  Your kids and their classmates are “valentines” to each other.  In other words, it’s sort of… I don’t know… creepy, maybe… thinking of one’s grandmother, one’s children, or one’s dog in the same light as people think of their spouse, and/or the hot chick/guy they’ve been shtooping/getting shtooped by for the last two years.  I mean, I realize you love your kids and you love your grandmother and what not, but it’s a totally different kind of love.  Make a choice.  Is Valentine’s Day a case of anyone can be anyone else’s innocuous “valentine”, or is it all about hot steamy romance?  If it IS a matter of anyone being anyone else’s valentine, that’s fine and dandy, but then y’all need to scale down the significance of the romance part of it a few hundred ticks.

Anyway, Valentine’s Day (I’ll call it “VDay” for saving keystrokes’ sake) is a day pretty much geared mainly toward women- oops, I mean, PEOPLE- in their mid-teens to maybe early twenties.  Now before you go slapping down your SEXIST card, hear me out.

The big anti VDay thing you hear from guys is something along the lines of, “It’s a holiday manufactured by Hallmark” or something like that.  That’s not my issue per se, though I do kinda think Hallmark, the florist industry, and those assbag jewelry retailers are the main conspirators.  It’s that it’s only done halfway.  I mean, why do they assume only women want/expect/deserve something for Valentine’s Day?  There’s never a huge February advertising campaign for Craftsman tools.  I mean, if you’re going to perpetuate gender stereotypes, you probably better hit all of them on both sides, don’t you think?  And if any woman doesn’t agree with any of this paragraph, that just proves my point that VDay is a “woman’s” holiday.

Most men really don’t care about VDay.  Most of them hope just hope they can get their significant other romanced up enough (or drunk enough, whichever it takes) to get laid, quite frankly.  But I’m guessing that the reason so many men are so vehemently against VDay is that they are pelted with commercials saying if you don’t go to Jared, you’re a total douchebag that doesn’t deserve even knowing any women, let alone dating or marrying one.  Not a good way to get men interested in the day.  I mean, if a woman will only be happy if I will buy her a $3500 Forever Love diamond earring and pendant set from Kay Jewelers, she’s not the kind of woman with whom I would want to be.  I know- no great loss to women of the world. Shut up.

Another problem is that women tend to read WAY too much into what they receive as gifts, especially on VDay.  Getting this as a gift must mean this negative thing, getting that as a gift must mean this negative thing.  Either tell us what you want, or don’t bitch about what you get.  What happened to, “It’s the thought that counts”?!  I understand that certain gifts aren’t exactly… romantic… and some can be just downright insulting, but when you think about it, why flowers?  Gee, what better way to symbolize your love for someone than an object that dies in four days?  And apparently, artificial flowers are a no-no, because “that says you were too cheap to shop for real flowers”.  (That was taken from a recent article in the local paper.  Granted, it was written by a teenager and geared toward teenagers, but again, not the way to get your boyfriend fired up about VDay.)  Can’t buy candy because “I’ll get fat”.  Can’t buy sugar-free candy because “that means you think I’m fat”.  We can’t win.  Also, especially with regard to teenagers, many teenagers don’t have a boatload of money to drop on trinkets and big expensive bouquets and such.  Give a little credit for the effort.  All I’m saying.

I asked Mrs. Johann one year what she wanted for VDay.  She thought about it and answered, “a new vacuum”.  So that’s what she got and she loved it.  There’s absolutely nothing “romantic” about a vacuum cleaner but I took great pride in the knowledge that I made her very happy and got her something she wanted.  If she didn’t “really” want a vacuum cleaner, like I’m sure a lot of women reading this are thinking, she shouldn’t have answered that when I asked her.

See, that’s part of what frustrates us as men so much.  Women tend not to say what they really mean or think, and thus like to put the impetus on us simpleminded guys to interpret and figure out what they really mean.  Okay, she said she doesn’t want anything for VDay, so that means I don’t have to get her anything, right?  In my mind, right.  In a woman’s mind, au contraire, mon frére. “Nothing” is woman-speak for, “I’m not telling you what I want; it’s up to you to figure it out and it better be something good”.  And that works the other way, too, just in the opposite fashion.  Women, if you ask a guy what he wants- or especially, what he’s thinking- and he says, “nothing”, then it means “nothing”.  There’s no big mystery involved.  If he wants something, or is thinking about something, a huge majority of men will tell you what’s on their mind.  It’s not some code, some secret cipher for you to unlock.  Relax there, Miss Marple.

No, my big thing against VDay is really quite simple.  Why should Valentine’s Day be any more or less special than any other day of the year?  Does s/he really love you more on February 14th than s/he did on the 13th or will on the 15th?  Do you really love them back any more on the 14th or any less than any other day?  And if you HAVE to pick one day to celebrate your love for your spouse/boyfriend/girlfriend/partner (whatever your situation… I don’t judge), shouldn’t it be your anniversary, or the date you started dating, whichever applies?  You know, the yearly acknowledgement of your commitment to each other?  But even then, when it boils right down to it, even THAT day shouldn’t infer a greater love for your significant other than any other day.  Excuse me for sounding all sappy or whatever, but to be truly happy, I’d think you should make EVERY day VDay or your anniversary or whatever.  It’s the hokiness that VDay “means” something that gets to me.  It’s just another day.

I don’t buy Mrs. Johann flowers on VDay, or for that matter, on our anniversary.  Why not, you ask, all judgy like that?  Because it’s obligatory; it’s expected.  I buy her flowers just for the hell of it because I was in the grocery store picking up pork chops and a toilet brush and they had some pretty flowers in the case and I decided to get them for her.  And the weirdest thing happens- she actually likes them.  She likes them because it’s not the contrived, expected occasion.  It shows I was thinking about her for no special reason.  Strangely enough, that actually means more to her than buying the obligatory VDay bouquet.

In case you’re wondering, I’m getting Mrs. Johann absolutely nothing for VDay, nor is she getting me anything.  We’ll likely get a little something for the kids, naturally, and we may go to breakfast or lunch- as a family- but other than that, February 14th will be no more (nor less) special than… oh, I don’t know… June 8th.  Or September 27th.  Or July 5th. Or February 10th.

It’s just a day, folks.  Get over it and stop making it into so much more than what it is.  Anyone, male or female, that expects to be showered in flowers, candy, steak & lobster dinners, jewelry, tools, furs, cars, boats, islands, or anything like that on VDay- or any other day, frankly- is a shallow, pretentious snob who really deserves to be alone.  If you truly, TRULY love your significant other, try telling them that and then accepting hearing it back from them as your present.  That should be all the present you need.

If that isn’t enough, well… that’s a shame.