Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone - if that floats your boat and all. (Edit: Realized this was also a Quofda question in hindsight.)
Personally, I find more “buoyant” properties in love expressed on each of the other 364 days of the year. After all, it’s lesser expected and therefore truly allows genuine expression to be conveyed through spontaneity. Heck, even though your birthday is on the same day every year, celebrating it on that day is still infinitely more personalized.
Think about it. If you asked a sweetheart presenting a bouquet of flowers on this day - “Who put you up to this?” - what would be the truthful answer? “Society.” Or, “Tradition.” Probably the most romantic answer might be, “Thousands of years of history says I love you today.”
Consumerism has essentially cheapened our expression of love. Truth be told, I really feel for you gentlemen with honeys because I know there are often repercussions if you don’t do something for them on this god-forsaken day. That is certainly our doing - so consider that I am perhaps speaking for a minority. My view is: Buying stuff is a great liberty each of us carry out in our daily activities and quick “fixes,” or convenience, is a natural extension of capitalism and consumerism, but when applied to actual people - I just don’t find myself enjoying any of that when on the receiving or giving end. Quite truthfully, I want to be different than everyone else. Okay - I want to be better than that. This day has gotten to the point where people just take the opportunity to set up their loved ones to fail.
It’s a lose-lose battle. You either don’t care enough because you didn’t sprinkle rose petals all over her bedroom like Petey did for his girlfriend and if you took her on a hot air balloon ride this year that means you gotta fly her on a private jetplane to the Caribbean next year and now you’re behind on your mortgage payments. What gives?
Well, let me come clean here. If you’re buying into the fact that the amount of time, effort, money, etc. you put into this day actually conveys how much you love your sweetheart, maybe you really asked for this. Case in point - people in the Midwest might be familiar with Sweetest Day, which is in October. It’s basically another Valentine’s Day. My roommate (from Michigan) and I were talking about this yesterday, and it is truly a Midwest phenomenon. Neither of us had heard about it being celebrated out here yet all through high school it was a day that everyone observed - school, family and otherwise. I Wiki‘ed it today and found out that it is merely a concoction of a candy company as a boon to their own industry.
Doesn’t it make more sense that if you are expecting your loved one to “perform” his or her magic on this day - that you really are expecting too little? That you’re expecting them to conform to the norm of expressing love on this day and in essence that’s just settling for what everyone else is getting? Love expressed 365 days of the year in just the little intricacies of compatibility seems so much more meaningful. So much more real. But that’s just me.
9 Comments
Preach on sista!
@jimmiwin: Thanks, Jim. I’m tryin’.
Gotta hand it to the devil… the corporations who brainwashed people into ‘celebrating’ their romance by buying it, all the while duping them into spouting off the ever-so cliche “money can’t buy love”. In fact, marketing works solely on that concept: That money does indeed buy happiness and love.
@soulst0p: Seriously. To not celebrate because you don’t buy into what you hear everywhere is now somewhat viewed as “radical.” People are thinking about how they can uniquely celebrate Vday but so little thought is put into why they celebrate it in the first place … as if it’s just a given.
Another interesting subject to think about: how and why diamonds became a girl’s best friend. Hmm….
@Mini Coop: That is an awesome one. I may seek permission to use it - with credit to you, of course.
Personally, it’s baffling. Aside from compromised diamonds (blood diamonds) of which there’s much to be said, I’m thinking De Beers really dished it to us and we took it willingly. BTW, I couldn’t tell a whatever setting from a whatever setting - nor a whatever cut from a whatever cut. Do I feel not-in-the-know? Yes. But thankfully.
I can definitely see your point here. Heh heh, growing up in the Midwest, I heard about “Sweetest Day” here and there…but for the longest time, I thought it was SWEDISH DAY. is that a fob story? perhaps.
It’s like you’re in my head.
@CC: That’s awesome. I think I also made that mistake in the beginning. How is one supposed to know without formal introduction, anyway? I still remember friends asking around that time, “Doing anything for sweetest day?” And I guess I just missed the point…
@Daniel Chao: Watch out now!