Tuesday 14 February 2012

Today's Review: Valentine's Day

Ah, love. As the mutated stop motion insects of the James And The Giant Peach movie once sang, love is the sweetest thing. They also said that it's the strangest thing in the next chorus, but I guess that's true. Love is strange, love is sweet, love can be many things, particularly a method for corporations to gain craploads of money by dedicating a specific day of the year to the celebration of love.

Happy Valentine's Day, everybody. If you're in love with a special person, namely if you're a man in love with a woman, today is apparently the day to let them know more than you usually do, and you're expected to do so by spending vast amounts of money on flowers and chocolates, expensive dinners, jewellery, and various other tokens that represent romance these days. Or, if you're feeling particularly creative, you could create a token of love at no financial cost, but filled with thought and effort. Sometimes that works better than generic gifts, and if not, then hey, at least you know she's only in it for the material things.

Valentine's Day isn't good for everyone though. On the run up and arrival of this day, the people without valentines are constantly complaining about this "celebration of love" that they can't partake in. Today is the day that they are constantly reminded of their lack of a partner. I suppose they have sort of a point, but really? Complaining about Valentine's Day because you're not seeing someone? That's like complaining about Chinese New Year because you're not Chinese. All these damn fireworks and dragons all in my face. Okay, I guess the lack of a relationship can be more personally painful than not having a certain heritage, but if you don't like Valentine's Day, just ignore it. It won't go away, but let the lovers be lovey and everything will be back to normal tomorrow.

I have a valentine though, of course, in the form of my fiancĂ©e and mother of my beautiful children. We're not partaking in Valentine's Day this year though, because we have to pack to go to Disneyland tomorrow, and all of the money we could be spending on gifts has already been spent on that. We don't spend too much time on Valentine's Day anyway, because the anniversary of the day I asked her out is the 7th of March, and holding out for a few more weeks to celebrate a more personal day just feels better. The restaurants aren't packed, the flowers aren't overpriced, and there aren't hundreds of other couples trying to do the same things in one rushed, cramped night.

So I somewhat agree, singletons, Valentine's Day isn't all it's cracked up to be. I could rant at length about how commercialised it all is, but we've heard it all before. If you want to celebrate your love, do it every day you can, or pick a day that means something to you personally. But for those who aren't that great at showing their romantic side, at least there's a day that pushes them into showing their love. Love is good, yo.

My rating: 2/5

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