Valentine's Day Massacre

Valentine's Day Massacre

 



Well, yet another Valentine's Day is upon us, and it is that time of year where we overinflate the need for companionship and sexual desire for the sole purpose of upping sales for yet another holiday, mainly in the form of selling red, white and pink novelty items, flowers and candy. The various retail industries try to toy with people's minds and emotions to make them feel the need to go out of their way to live up to some sort of unrealistic expectation that they need to top themselves every year.

 

As someone who only recently entered his first really meaningful relationship a few months ago, I have experienced many lonely Valentine's Days, and while loneliness was always a part of every day life, something about this holiday just made it feel more prominent. I always viewed the holiday with resentment and annoyance, especially while watching other people gush about how wonderful their lives were with their significant others. 

 

This will be my first Valentine's Day spent with someone special to me, but I find that my feelings towards the holiday are still the same. I will do what I can to make tomorrow a nice day, but I still resent the holiday for overinflating the importance of pleasing other people just so retailers can sell candy and jewelry. It's a holiday that makes single people feel small, worthless and depressed, and it makes dating people feel it's necessary to rub it in other people's faces that they are special and that their relationships are magical and perfect and wonderful. This is how strongly I feel about it.

 

I'm more a fan of quiet and understated expressions of love and warmth, such as an occasion when I worked at a supermarket three years ago. Two parents came through the check out line with their four-year-old little girl in the shopping cart. When they came to the front, she started waving excitedly at me. I waved back. She held her hand out for me to shake. I shook it. Then she leaned forward and kissed my hand.

Now I'm not a sentimentalist, but in that one moment, I was glad I came in to work that day. It was on Valentine's Day, and I have never forgotten it.