Happy Freakin' Valentine's Day

In one episode of the Simpsons, the opening scene shows a boardroom meeting for a gift company. An executive is doing a chart presentation in which he acknowledges and glosses-over a summertime dearth of gift-related sales. The cigar-smoking CEO summarily fires him and declares: "We need to make a new holiday for the summer. Something like... oh, I don't know... Love Day! Except not so lame."

Next scene, the Simpsons have their house heavily-decorated with a ridiculous quantity of useless Love Day paraphernalia. Talking bears and the like. And no one seems to be certain what it is that they're celebrating exactly. For me, that is what Valentine's day is. Except more miserable.

And it's coming-up this week.

I've never had any good experiences on Valentine's day. Well, with the exception of Tricia- my first girlfriend in my senior year of high-school, that is. (And Tricia immigrated to the U.S. at the age of seven, I should point-out.)

You know, I really ought to type-up the story of Tricia sometime, but I assure you, it was all extremely, extremely lame. In fact, the relationship was so lame and uneventful, you'd probably fall asleep. On that Valentine's Day, Tricia gave me a card- and I have her a card. It was a simultaneous exchange. (Awww...) Now, I want you to realize: that was the best Valentine's day I've ever experienced. Ever. That was nine years ago. That was as good as it's ever gotten.

Pretty sad, eh?

In middle school, for four years straight, I got Valentine's Day candy only from one girl- a Sikh girl who gave a piece of candy to everybody.

I don't really want to go into detail about my Valentine's Day experience with Whorebag. It left a rug-burn on my soul. Let's just say she spent half the evening with me in a Thai restaurant, with her arms crossed, angrily muttering how much she hates Thai food and what a miserable piece of shit I was for forcing her to endure such a travesty and how all of her past boyfriends gave her better Valentine Day evenings than I was giving her. I spent the second half of the evening pleading in apology; trying to sooth her and calm her down and make it up to her somehow.

"I was hoping for something original from you. Why the hell can't I have a boyfriend who does original things for me on Valentine's Day??" She fumed. "My last boyfriend got me a limo!" Oh, you mean the ex-boyfriend who tried to run-over you with his car?

She threatened to break-up with me over that. Ugh. I mean- be reasonable. Is it really worth terminating a relationship over being taken to a restaurant on Valentine's Day that you didn't like? You know, just thinking about her makes me want to kick someone- anyone.

So, this will be my... um... 25th Valentine's Day without being in a relationship since birth. Huzzah.

And you know what? There was a time where I would've gladly tried to think-up original sweet things to do for my woman. Where I would've brought her flowers and given her hand-made cards and sweet things like that. But now- fuck it.

Fuck it. That's right. I said 'Fuck it'.

I don't care anymore. I just don't. There used to be a part of me that wanted to do sweet things like that. There used to be a part of me that wanted to be a romantic guy who made his woman feel like the most desired woman on the planet. That part of me died.

Why the hell should I plan special things on V-day for women who won't find me attractive and who behave like total whackjobs anyway? (That would be most American women.) Why? What reward is there? None! There is no palpable incentive that I can see! With the exception of the single Valentine's Day in high school with Tricia, there aren't any where I didn't end-up feeling miserable or that I was missing-out on something great.

Tell me- does anyone really enjoy Valentine's Day? I mean... the gift-card commercials, chocolatiers and jewlers make it look like everyone has fun on Valentine's day. But, almost everyone you talk to says they hate Valentine's Day. I don't think there's any other holiday with such a huge gap between the hype and the actual sentiment.

This Valentine's Day, I'm gonna get me a bottle of Bombay Sapphire gin and get tore-up. And maybe I'll walk-up to women at random and give-out black, heart-shaped cards that say "Fuck you!"

(Kinda like these, maybe...)

Why do we put up with it?

If we don't like a holiday, why must we endure it? I mean- I like Thanksgiving dinner. I kinda like Halloween parties. I love New Years parties. But Valentine's Day? Urrgh. The thought of the thing brings-up pain. Heartache. Stinging memories of unrequited affection and involuntary solitude. The month of February is miserable enough with overcast skies and slush without rubbing salt into my psychological wounds to boot. We don't even get a day-off. Valentine heart candies are always so chalky, too.

I mean... it's kind of like grapefruit juice. Almost no one I know actually likes grapefruit juice. Yet juice-makers keep-on cranking-out bottles of the bitter stuff because there must be a handful of people out there somewhere who buy enough grapefruit juice to keep grapefruit-juicing an economically viable activity.

Who are these morons who keep torturing us by actually enjoying Valentine's Day? They need a taste of the lash! I want to hunt them down and see them clubbed like baby harp seals!

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"Life... is like a box of chocolates: a cheap, thoughtless perfunctory gift that nobody ever asks for. Unreturnable because all you get back is another box of chocolates. So you're stuck with this indefinable whipped-mint crap that you mindlessly wolf-down when there's nothing else left to eat. Sure, once in a while there's a peanut-butter cup or an English toffee but they're gone too fast; their taste fleeting. So you end up with nothing but broken bits filled with hardened jelly and tooth-shattering nuts. And if you're desperate enough to eat those, all you've got left is a... is an empty box filled with useless brown paper wrappers." -- William B. Davis, The X-Files.

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