Valentine’s Day is relative, and dare I say: overrated. And I propose making every day your own Valentine’s Day. If someone else wants to share it with you, so be it. If not, their loss.
Because let’s face it: If you’re in a happy relationship, or if you have the prospect of one, it’s a happy occasion. But if you’re very single and with few prospects of that changing any time soon, the day can be a real effing downer!
If you’re in the SWFP (single with few prospects) group, the days and weeks leading up to it are impossible to avoid. Rose and chocolate specials are advertised everywhere. The stores are filled with aisles of pink and red cards and envelopes, stuffed bears, and those big gaudy heart-shaped chocolate boxes. It’s enough to make you start wishing for Easter and all its pastel candy displays.
My friend Brady a few years back told me he wasn’t planning anything special for his girlfriend because he doesn’t believe in Valentine’s Day. It’s just a superficial, materialistic day created by retailers to sell lots of stuff, he told me. At first I snickered and told him, “Yeah, good luck convincing your girlfriend of that. Let me know how that works out for ya!”
But the more I think about it, the more I see his point. Sure, if you’re 16 and young in love, the buildup to Feb. 14 is exciting. Heck, at that age it’s exciting if you’re simply pining over the gangly JV basketball player and wondering if he’ll send you a Rose-O-Gram in second period English.
But I’m 16 times 2 now, plus a few heartbreaks. I haven’t exactly given up on the big four-letter L-word, but I am definitely more cautious and guarded. So lately I’ve been thinking, why do we have to wait for someone else to be our Valentine? Why can’t we just be our own?
And no, ye of dirty mind, I’m not just talking about the physical benefits of having a Valentine. I’m talking about the pampering, the spoiling, the indulging. Why should I wait for some dude to buy me a massage when I can buy one for myself? Why not buy myself flowers to brighten up my living room? Spa day? A box of truffles? I can make that happen, too. And not just on Feb. 14 but whenever I feel like it. Because you know what? I deserve pampering and spoiling, and until a deserving and fitting suitor smartens up and decides to give it to me, I’ll treat myself to the best of everything.
And who knows? Maybe after all that self-indulgence and self-pampering, I’ll have that glow of relaxation and contentment that makes some potential Valentine do a double-take and say, “Who’s that? Check her out!” If not, his loss.
I am already making plans for a grand Valentine’s Day gift to myself. Come Feb. 14, I will have just landed in London, England, for a five-day getaway with my best friend, her husband and toddler. And I have an idea of where I can find myself a great Valentine’s gift. One word, fashion-forward people: Harrod’s.
That’s better than any box of chocolates. Even better: The memories I’ll make with my best friend will be forever, unlike those dozen roses that will wither and die by Feb. 24.
ADAM
Hey Molly Ringwald, somewhere out there in VHS-Land Ducky is playing an OMD song for you. Even the two queens from Air 
Supply had to sit up in the middle of their perms to keep from gagging on the melodrama.
However, that’s not to say I can’t sympathize with you. One is indeed the loneliest number but fear not because these eyes have seen a lot of loves and I’m sure there’s gonna be another one for you. So every now and then when you get a little tired of listening to the sound of your tears, remember the words of that little band who used to play by the river, “someday, somebody is going to see inside you.”
Even the lonesome losers must keep on trying. Neither age, continuous disappointment, nor the demise of rock ballads can let you down.
Love, after all, is what life revolves around. And heartache is often 50 percent of the equation. In my youth, following a traumatic breakup, my old man, who at the time was about as sensitive as Simon Cowell, gave me a valuable anecdote which I never forgot. He said, “How would we know true love, great love were it not for the heartache and disappointments we experience leading up to it?”
The other great piece of advice I’ll always remember is a quote from Jon Favreau’s character, Mike, in the movie Swingers who said, “the beautiful babies don’t work the midnight to six shift on a Wednesday, that’s the skank shift.”
Apply that conversely as you may.
But Eve, your disenchantment with the holiday shouldn’t be aimed at Hallmark or Godiva. I’m going to go out on a limb and put some of the blame on you women for tarnishing the conceptions we have of Valentine’s Day. That’s right, you have to point the finger inward at yourselves here. As soon as you allowed Hollywood and the media to present the Britney Spears, the Tila Tequilas and Samantha Jones’ of the world as acceptable representations of what is ladylike, you surrendered the white flag.
And I’m not pointing the finger at anybody personally, but women as a whole. Because while for the most part you will individually deny admiring these celebrities, you, as a gender, do nothing to hinder them either. And that is where the fault lies.
Rarely, if at all, do men buy the magazines which promote these unscrupulous women on their covers. And men don’t discuss them at the hair salon. Admittedly though, men are sexual animals and if the gatekeepers of sex (women) carelessly leave the cage open without a lock, we’re not going to respect the civilities which have been in place.
When female etiquette standards are set by MTV lets not be surprised by plummeting chivalry. Laugh we may when an old Western Movie comes on and a cowboy stands up and tips his hat to a lady, but beware, romance is in danger of becoming a fossil. A thing we’ll read about in books to our grandchildren and say, “Really, there was a time when people courted one another and had emotional ties to sex.”