So I’m a couple days late with this, but I promise you it will have been worth the wait. For those of you like who were more inclined to pay homage to Singles Awareness Day instead of V-Day, I’m guessing that Sunday was a massive shit storm of the popular media, society, and almost everyone around you (if you went out in public) flaunting how miserable and single you are. As always I’ve prepared a not so conventional analysis of the day, its meanings, customs, and the people who partake in them.
So February 14th has somehow become synonymous with romance. I should amend that and say that it’s been proselytized as being synonymous with romance. It’s the one day of the year when even the most macho and chauvinistic men on the planet can lower their guard and shower their special lady friend with love and lavish gifts. The singular day of the whole year when love blooms and couples grow closer together, partaking in romantic outings, dining on exquisite meals at fancy places, doting upon one another, sharing in the company of just being a couple…or so the story goes.
From my perspective, the entire holiday is a manufactured pile. It’s the one day of the year when any asshole with a platinum card and five minutes can come across as Don Juan by showing up with flowers and chocolates. I’m sorry to say, but from where I sit, making dinner reservations, having flowers delivered, and having an actual conversation should not require the pretense of a Hallmark holiday. Valentine’s Day is a complete indictment of the decent treatment that guys like me dish out at every turn. It’s a day when the cheesiest and lamest plays in the book become something more than a Hail Mary pass and the women that date these insensitive pricks eat it up wholesale.
I’m sorry, I know the shit works, but it’s cliché. It’s a standard of the holiday and the behavior that you’re supposed to do something nice and romantic. This in itself I have no issue with because I’m all for people exercising an excuse to make a grandiose gesture of love or affection. Hell I use to actively seek them out. I use to relish any opportunity to endear myself further to my love and show just how thoughtful I could be. Now don’t get me wrong, I know that some of you out there feel you’ve got the perfect man. But do me a favor, before you go decrying me for insulting people or things I supposedly know nothing about, ask yourself this question, did you do something with your significant other that you would not or could not have been able to do on any other Sunday of the year?
If the answer is no, then you have no case. And just so we’re clear here discounts, coupons, offers, deals, and bonuses don’t count. My stance is simple, if the guy you’re with is truly a romantic and you as a woman gravitate toward that kind of behavior, then you either need to find someone who does it in different ways every year and just count the days from one V-Day to the next, or find someone who will do it on a whim and in new and exciting ways. You might love the guy you’re with but if he’s an insensitive dick that’s more out of touch with your feelings than Glenn Beck is with reality, odds are your relationship is on life support and you need to start looking for a donor.
The entire ideation of a single day set aside to be a romantic, caring, nurturing, and loving individual is a slap in the face to the men that do it every day. The rationale behind it all is maddening too, because the preconceived idea is that if I a guy goes all out for his lady, makes her feel romantic, loved, tender, cared for, valued, and safe she’ll sleep with him the minute hormones take over. I know at this point most of you women are preparing to argue steadfastly about the men you’re with being worthwhile human beings, but let’s cut the crap and just get to it here. The guy you’re with is, most likely, a shill. He follows the same play book everyone else does. If you don’t believe me, perhaps I can prove it mathematically.
Now I’ll grant you this is really the way it works for men, and woman freely welcome the feelings that these ham handed gestures engender because they actually seek out the treatment. Men and women are wired very differently in that MOST men, equate almost everything to how likely is the action to get them laid, fast cars, big houses, good jobs, alcohol tolerance, flashy clothes, reliable friends, I mean the list goes on, but really if you boil down all of the pretenses and the stories, you begin to find that it’s all really an image that is constructed in a way to make the man seem way more attractive. MOST women, on the other hand, want to feel safe, secure, wanted, coveted, and sexy. Even these very blunt and thoughtless gestures of dinner for two with wine and roses, while very trite and cliché do little, if anything to actually bring two people closer together.
I mean the chocolates are a staple of V-Day and really what purpose do they serve? Most men by this time of year are just starting to feel more amorous toward their women, as the pounds they packed on over the holidays are finally beginning to shed as a result of New Year’s resolutions. In addition, most women are always planning months ahead and have already begun to note the calendar as to when beach season starts and they’re aiming to fit into a bikini one size smaller than they could the year before. Now we add the sex factor. The guy hasn’t had any good tail in months, the Super Bowl is over, his lady is losing pounds, and he thinks he just might be in the mood for an all night cram session, with a little help from some blue pills mind you. So he takes it upon himself to anything and everything he can to make his lady feel as horned up and wanton as possible.
The tried and true staples of the holiday come out with full force. Chocolates for their euphoric effects (dollar says most of you didn’t know they did that), flowers with a shallow message about love or beauty and making abstract comparisons to her, and then a dinner at a restaurant with a sweet deal for two people, an open table in the right time slot, and just close enough to your place where you can be a couple glasses of wine to the wind before the night’s festivities begin. All completely unoriginal, and sadly, almost guaranteed to work.
Well the morning after it goes back to business as usual. The guy wants to be woken up via blowjob, his lady is expecting him to remain a sweet caring guy, and by 9AM they’ve come to the realization that she is neither a sex kitten, nor is he the Casanova she took him to be. So my question is, why go through all the trouble of putting on the song and dance if nothing changes. If a relationship is stale, it’s stale. Gifts, dinners, and even the most romantic gestures of jewelry, horse drawn carriage rides, walks in the surf of the beach, and even moonlight poetry all come down to useless actions with little meaning behind them, if they’re only done because of the holiday. It’s like making it a point to contact lost friends around the holiday season, it doesn’t mean anything if you’re only doing it because of the holiday.
Amid riding out the obligations and imposed expectations of the holiday, most couples are no better for it, and that is what is truly sad, it’s like wedding anniversaries. They don’t mean dick unless the things you’re doing to honor them are bigger than anything you could do on any other given day. Taking her to dinner is one thing for V-Day or anniversary, but pick a random Wednesday, send a limo to her office with a dress she mentioned she liked and shoes to match (don’t be afraid to get her friends in on it for sizing and style help, trust me they’ll jump at it) and take her to a romantic dinner, followed by a beach trip or a carriage ride and instead of going home to have sex just spend the night holding each other. To most men it might sound gay but let me tell you that this kind of thing, being done with no outside impetus aside from just general want, is the quickest way in the world to not only bond very deeply with the woman you profess to love, but also to break yourself of the habit of behavior where every action is intended to lead to sex.
Sheesh, do you really want me to comment on this?
ReplyDeleteIf you read it, you have to!
ReplyDeleteI agree!! If you read, you must comment!!! I dont apply to that rule though...cause my interenet is crap and some times wont let me.
ReplyDeleteAnyways......do I get the dollar since I know that what chocolate does to your hormones??? lol
Well...not much to say about this, I hate that day with a passion that I cannot put into words, its all just a bunch of BS!
Certain exceptions are made on a case by case basis, but as a general rule, if you're reading, you need to participate in the discussion.
ReplyDeleteAs for the day itself, I'm guessing that Nikki strongly dislikes or has differing feelings about the topic being covered. I'd be interested hear your thoughts. As for Aurora, well we all know the holiday is bullshit, and it's really just a reason for people to buy useless shit, much like Christmas, but where that targets children, V-Day aims for love sick adults looking to get laid.
"You might love the guy you’re with but if he’s an insensitive dick that’s more out of touch with your feelings than Glenn Beck is with reality, odds are your relationship is on life support and you need to start looking for a donor."
ReplyDeleteHaha that was brilliant.
To be fair, I love Valentine's Day. I don't understand why Valentine's Day has developed such a stigma actually. Most of my friends spent the week before Valentine's beginning to bitch about the fakeness and whatnot. But if you don't want to celebrate it, then don't? If people ask you, just tell them you don't celebrate it. To me, hating Valentine's Day is akin to the gay people who are "over the top, rub it in your face." I mean, great. No one cared until you rubbed it in his/her face.
But that's pretty critical and maybe people don't think like me, I don't know.
<3
Well, I've come back to the blog to give you my thoughts on this post. I just didn't have the energy to debate why this holiday, or any holiday for that matter is hated because it's a Hallmark holiday, or in celebration of bullshit.
ReplyDeleteI happen to like the holiday, fake or not, and I personally don't give two shits if people hate it. I don't see the point in dogging the day, as with Christmas and Thanksgiving. I look at it this way, if people are willing to spend money on the pointless stuff, then let them. I just don't want to hear about how broke they are because of the economy (I've grown to really dislike that word) when millions, if not, billions are spent on these days. Anyway, my point is, I'm a bit spent on reading about negativity on these holidays. *Sigh* I had a feeling your new post would reflect on the last holiday. What's next, St.Patrick's day? Easter.. I'm sure Halloween is the only holiday you agree with, which is fine, but give me a break. I didn't want to comment initially cause I was afraid I'd sound even bitchier than I do now.
Sorry, but I had a good Valentine's Day. No fancy dinner or cheesy gifts, just quality time with my dude. Sure, I spent a week making his Vday card from scratch with my personal creativity and made something quite special.. but I don't just do things for him because it's a holiday. And we've been in a relationship for almost 4 years now, all of which chocolates and roses have never been the equation to get him laid. I'm not saying this isn't true for others out there, but give us girls some credit. It's the little things he does each day that inspired me to give him something in return he can hold onto and remember later on in life.
PS. I happen to LOVE chocolate anyway. :)
ReplyDeleteNikki, you react as though the post is directed at you, or a specific indictment of your dynamic. I will grant you that the somewhat negative viewpoint espoused regarding most holidays, is neither uplifting nor comforting, but the point is to generate discussion, which I seem to have done. Now, one thing I’d like to point out is that I took great pains to emphasize that my opinion in the most, was exactly that; nothing more than opinion. I welcome discord and disagreement, but on the whole, the basis of your argument seems to be that somehow my dislike of the major holidays is somehow in error.
ReplyDeleteYou’re entitled to your opinion and interpretation, just the same as I am. That said, I’m not about to decry or denounce you, and no for those of you who are also reading, this is not an open invite to pick on her. It’s polite disagreement; this is what I’m here for.
It’s good that you had an enjoyable holiday and still find time, effort, and compulsion to devote energy to your relationship, even in tangible tokens. There’s absolutely nothing to be derided in that. I’m sure most people would sell their soul and several other things for the kind of low maintenance dynamic you share with your significant other, however, for most V-day is one of the only times of the year when men actually show that they feel anything. At the risk of being far too blunt, I think you missed the point of the post, and that could very well be my fault.
I wasn’t denouncing any specific dynamic, but rather the tendency for men with no romantic inclinations to capitalize on the day as a means of expressing emotional sentiment and sensitivity that they otherwise refuse to acknowledge. The idea is that men who exhibit chauvinistic tendencies, come off as self absorbed or disinterested in the dealings of their partners, or even just guys too afraid to indulge in gestures of overt romance, are given free license to do every cheesy, cliché, hackneyed trick in the book on V-day and as a means of saving face with their male friends, they downplay the emotion behind such actions as being a means to an end, in this case: sex.
For women like yourself who are lucky enough to have a guy in touch with his emotions, kudos, but for others, they’re being used, and that was the point of my pontificating. I apologize if the argument was muddled of if for any reason you felt as though my posting (which, I’d like to point out is read by hardly anyone and should hardly be taken as gospel) somehow cheapened your relationship. Now if I was promoting gay marriage, I could see how you’d be threatened because the next step is mass abortions and Nazi rallies.
So...Im not picking, Im just stating my opinion.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, if you have that big of an issue of what he is posting then don't fucking read it.
So what if he doesn't like holidays. As someone who has known him all his miserable life, he has a right to dislike them and voice his own opinion on his own post.
And in your comment, it does sound like you are trying to defend yourself, which I think is odd since his post wasnt really aimmed at you.
And damn right he loves Halloween!!!!! That is our long time tradition and he celabrate it every year!! I even give out gifts!
As for me, I don't really like V-day because there shouldn't be a specific day to tell the person you're with that you love them. You should do it every day, or any time, not wait around til February comes around....people like that are pricks.
And if I keep on going, Im just gonna bitch slap someone so peace out!!!!!
Fair enough. And Halloween is my holiday too, as being born within minutes of it, it's a given. That's my favorite time of year, and yes, I celebrate as well. I'm not knocking it whatsoever, so relax. :)
ReplyDeleteAs for my response, it was an opinion, and yes in a way, somewhat defensive. If you didn't like my response, "don't fucking read it" right? But really, I'm sure you will, just as I've read yours. It's cool, keeps the conversation going.
Regardless of everything, Nick, I understand what you're saying... I lost my way in my response since I read this once and days before I responded... so it got muffled.
Anyway, I can see how you'd come to that theory, as it's pretty obvious with guys who lack any kind of romantic gene. That's why there are Kay Jeweler commercials to remind them that they should treat their lady to something special, even if it's once a year.
It's a good thing that there are men (you and a handful - myabe less) out there who don't solely rely on a holiday to do something nice and out of love. I can appreciate that.
^ Nick never solely relies on a holiday to do something nice and out of love because he's not nice even in love.
ReplyDeletejkjk
WTB> More posts, Nick.