Anti-Valentine's Day

“So, do you celebrate Valentine's Day, or do you see it as a soulless corporate holiday?” DoOL asked me yesterday.

What a loaded question! If I don’t celebrate it, do I come across as being anti-romantic and completely unappreciative of my beloved? If I admit that I do celebrate it, do I end up looking boastful and slightly needy? “Look at me, I got flowers. Because I’m worth it … right? Right?!”

It’s hard to get past the pain of Valentine’s Day etched into my fragile psyche during elementary school. These days, Sport and his classmates are sent home with notes instructing parents that, should our child choose to participate, all children must be given a valentine, with further instructions prohibiting personal messages. “Your child should sign his/her name only! Do not address them, leave the ‘To’ field blank.”

In my day, you could pick and choose who’d get a valentine, signed, sealed and delivered in its tiny white envelope. We could buy special, lace-covered masterpieces to give to the one we loved the best. How I dreaded looking through my artfully decorated shoebox for a special valentine that never came. All of us would count up how many we got, eagerly shouting out the number: “I got 11!” “I got 15!” “I got 20!” I was never the recipient of the most love tokens; popular girls like Sarah or Norma always claimed that honor.

Most teenage girls fill their angst-ridden hours of adolescence by reading romance novels, an exercise I am convinced seriously warped me. Those things completely deceived me as to what a real relationship with a man might be like. I’ve rarely met any male who acted like the main characters in these ridiculous stories, maddened by love to the point of entering into a marriage of convenience. And those long passages of annoying dialogue! Most men I know would rather swallow their tongues before uttering nonsense such as:

"I can promise to hurt you, to infuriate you, to be unreasonable and impatient, but no one will love you more. No one."

Or:

"I need to see the shape of your face though my hands. It's not enough to see it with my eyes. Do you understand?"

And this:

"I don't need your dowry, your parents, your Grecian temple, your pond, your abbey -- I don't need anything. All I want, all I need, is you."

A long time ago, SO and I decided not to take part in the much-hyped Valentine's Day. He got uncomfortable over my unstated expectations and I got uncomfortable with the competitive nature of it all, especially at work. When my boss got her yearly bouquet, she'd make such a big to do about it that the rest of us ended up feeling like we didn't measure up. I felt as if I'd regressed back to that 4th grade girl I'd been, shaking my shoebox to see if I'd gotten anymore valentines.

Instead, we make each other little cards and focus more attention on celebrating our anniversary, a date that's uniquely ours. I'd be lying if said I'd turn down a vase full of red roses. I'm a romantic at heart, God help me. But the one romantic boyfriend I had in college kind of got on my nerves. He was a sweetheart of a guy and always showed up for dates with flowers or candy or a card. But he was too nice of a guy. I wanted a guy with a bad boy edge, one not so desperate to please.

So, yes, Valentine's Day is all about the money. I take pleasure in sticking it to The Man and refusing to sell-out. As this guy/girl says, it's an overrated, capitalistic invention, and what you spend today is in no way a reflection of your true feelings for your beloved.

Plus, if you wait until tomorrow, you can get that heart-shaped box of Russell Stover's chocolated for half price. Nothing says "I love you" better than two for the price of one!