Anti-Valentines day, 2009

My wife and I don’t celebrate Valentines Day. This is for several reasons, but the biggest reason is that we don’t like being made to buy overpriced flowers and chocolates, pay for overpriced restaurants, and buy overpriced cards that convey generic and meaningless messages of love to someone I already love and have far more profound ways of expressing it than what Hallmark has cooked up. So basically, we’re both jaded and cheap.

A couple days before Valentines, Dee wasn’t feeling well (more so than usual) so on my way home I made two quick stops. I went to a stationary store and bought a couple of coloured “Sharpie” permanent markers, and as an afterthought grabbed some $5 tulips from a street vendor. She appreciated the flowers, but when she saw the markers she squeed in excitement. (Note, Squee is an onamotapia…it is exactly as it sounds).

She had mentioned in passing a week prior to this that her current marker was getting dry, and writting labels on burnable DVDs was getting difficult. So the thoughtfulness of my gift, regardless of cost, was far more valuable and meaningful to her than any number of generic flowers can possibly convey.

And basically that’s the core of why I despise Valentines. If you need an annual holiday to express your love and affection for someone, then your relationship is in serious trouble. However, if you find little ways over the course of the year to make a difference, then you’ll realize that V-Day is nothing more than a cash grab for flourists and card companies alike.

So how did we celebrate the day I keep ragging on? We got our single friends together and took them to the pub for drinks and food, and then came back to our place afterward to watch some great stand-up comedy. It keeps them from feeling bad and buying into the hype, and who knows…maybe we can be the wing-man then need to get them hooked up with another hapless single person!