love out loud: valentine’s day

My boyfriend was relieved earlier this week when I informed him that my next couple of columns were going to be about dudes who aren’t him (he likes his private life private and even though I’ve previously written about my violation of such requests, it’s also not in my interests to annoy someone I have a bit of a thing for).

Rather, I was going to write about incidents with Bob Dylan, because he once told me to write about him as much as I like, because he found it interesting to understand himself better through my lens.

Then I realised that Valentine’s Day took place two days ago and that writing a relationship column made it somewhat obligatory for me to take a stance on it. Problem being that even as a person with as many opinions as I’ve got, I found myself feeling utterly complacent about it, something that I couldn’t properly articulate to myself until I came across this little gem of an explanation.

I don’t agree with quite all the sentiments expressed in the article, but it nonetheless resonated with me.

Despite being with someone on Valentine’s Day for the first time since 2006, I had no desire to celebrate it. My personal view is that relationships should be celebrated all the time, and that it seems a bit contrived and embarrassing to celebrate your relationship amongst other couples that are celebrating their own relationship. It doesn’t make any sense to me, but retail therapy also doesn’t make any sense to me and I don’t criticise friends when they tell me they’re going shopping.

(But seriously, you have your self-esteem obliterated by trying on clothes that look so much better on the rack and even when you’re a smaller size than you thought, you know it’s just the store trying to manipulate you with vanity sizing, and then you have to PAY for that experience? Come on.)

Valentine’s Day this year was but a blip on my newsfeed, but this doesn’t actually mean anything. Many people seem to rank themselves as somehow superior to the celebration of any kind of holiday or event and really, they’re probably just as tired from all their bitching as those who are exhausted after consuming two huge meals on Christmas Day.

Valentine’s Day is kind of dumb, but is usually celebrated with the best of intentions and makes a lot of people feel all gooey inside, which isn’t a bad thing. The worst thing about it really is how much attention it’s given by those who claim to not care.

In truth, all publicity is good publicity so if you want Valentine’s Day to go away, your best bet is to ignore it.

Or the sexy rumpus thing. Less effective, but probably cooler.

(Image credit: 1.)