Valentine’s Day, massacred

The headline on the wire story in Sunday’s Inquirer screamed “Love or not, good times on Valentine’s Day vital, counselor says,” and it reminded me why I hate these sorts of holidays.

For the past few weeks, I’ve been bombarded with messages warning of impending Valentine’s Day doom. Ads on television. Signs in stores. I got press releases from every third company in town trying to get that one Valentine’s Day feature story PW will be running in the paper tomorrow. And I’ve been asked by friends about my Valentine’s Day plans.

I’d like to write I truly don’t care what other people think, but since the only thing I care about is what other people think, my brain won’t let my fingers perpetuate that lie. The truth is, I do care about what people think, and I do let it get to me. And so, on a day where my Valentine’s Day plans involve going to a basketball game and then filing a story about it, I’m not really all that excited about talking about them — even if it is Penn-Princeton at the Palestra.

It’s like this on every one of these ‘must-have-fun’ holidays: New Year’s, the day before Thanksgiving (a relatively new entrant), my birthday. Yes, on my birthday, the day of the year where all the attention is supposed to be lavished on me, I would rather just sit inside and count holes in the ceiling.

There gets to be a feeling around these holidays — for we insecure ones, at least — that there’s so much pressure to go out and have fun. Get drunk, have sex, take a girl home, but most of all have fun, and if you don’t well then you’re just un-American, aren’t you?

Valentine’s Day, though, doesn’t really sting all that bad. From what I can remember, I’ve been on two (2) Valentine’s Day dates in my lifetime. Both went very well, both were with girls I was seriously dating, both girls looked much better than I did. (I couldn’t be positive about this for too long.) And, hooray, both were awesome times and etc. etc.

You see, Valentine’s Day should be the kind of holiday I’d love: It’s sort of attention on your own terms. Despite my shyness, I’m active in small groups, and so when I’m in one-on-one situations (or, uh, in print), I open up. And so a V-Day date shouldn’t be much of a problem, provided I can find one.

The thing is, though, I don’t know why we need a holiday to celebrate love. Yes, like other holidays, it’s become more about stuffing our faces and exchanging gifts nobody really wants, so I know it’s not really a holiday celebrating love anymore. But at least apocryphally, it is based on a celebration of love and relationships and being shot with an arrow and all that good stuff.

I’ve been fortunate enough in my life to have been in relationships, to have been in love, to have actually duped people to be exclusively with me for periods of time lasting up to and over a year! And being in love is about the greatest feeling in the world. (Your favorite team winning the Super Bowl might be better. I doubt I’ll ever know.)

Right here, I was thinking of putting a sentence that said some equivalent of “Not to get too sappy or anything,” but then I realized we’re way past that line already and we’re not turning back for another few paragraphs. You may skip down if you wish.

When you’re in love it’s like every day is a Valentine’s Day, where you spend all your day thinking up ways to try to impress or compliment or surprise and the person’s the first thing you think of when you wake up in the morning and the last thing you think of when you go to bed.

I don’t know what a better idea for the holiday is. Maybe it’s a good reminder. Maybe a better day would be a celebration of people you like, where you can tell coworkers, acquaintances, friends, teammates they really make you happy. Maybe I’m just bitter. But, you know, I don’t think this day is all that important. I don’t know if it belongs on the list of holidays I dread. Because if you don’t do anything, who cares? You have all the time in the world to figure out who it is you’re going to love (or, you know, have sex with) and lavish your attention on. Hey, it could happen tomorrow.

So tonight I’m going to read that article, “Love or not, good times on Valentine’s Day vital,” and then I’m going to go cover a basketball game and have a plain old boring time. And I will be happy.

Man, I am bitter. Screw you, Valentine’s Day.

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