Giovenith wrote:
I could have been worse."It's stupid to have a day about love because you should love your partner all the time!"
By that logic, we shouldn't celebrate any holiday, memorial, or special occasion. Christmas? You should celebrate Jesus and/or charity and goodwill all the time! Thanksgiving? You should be grateful for what you've got all the time! Birthdays? You should be appreciative that your friends and family were born all the time! New Years Eve? You should thinking of goal to improve yourself all the time! Fourth of July? You should be proud to be an American all the time! Wedding anniversary? You should be happy that you got married all the time! Veterans/Memorial Day? We should be thanking the soldiers for their service all the time!
Holidays are all, ostensibly, designed to promote some kind of value or virtue. Nobody is deluded enough to think that the existence of a holiday implies that you shouldn't embrace those values or virtues every other day of the year; neither are you, you just pretend to be when it comes to Valentines exclusively. If you're really serious about this "we should do XYZ all the time!" argument, feel free to become a Jehovah's Witness.
"It's so cheesy and kitsch! It makes me wanna puke!"
As opposed to what, the tasteful elegance of running around with cone-shaped hats while patting around rubber bags of your nasty Doritos breath? Slapping orange, black, and purple together while parading around autumnal fruits and twerking to "The Monster Mash" in a cheap rubber Batman costume? Dragging a random ass tree into your living room and covering it in glitter and glass to please a fat man dressed in bright red fur? Getting black out drunk while covered in gold and silver tinsel and big cardboard glasses shaped like numbers? Getting black out drunk again, but this time dressed in all green and pretending to be proud of your 1/16th ancestry from a distant nation you know nothing about besides the fact that they're all gingers and Catholics and something about fairies?
Holidays are supposed to be cheesy and kitsch. That's what makes them fun and notable. I'm so sorry if your only idea of a proper celebration is an Austenian royal ball or some shit.
"It was just invented by a card company to sell more cards!"
So what? Only holidays invented in the distant past are valid? How long do we have to wait before we're allowed to put up some damn decorations? Or do they have to have a "dignified" enough origin, as if we don't all remember how Christmas was just an excuse for the Romans to have drunken gay orgies that got jacked by the Christians as a marketing gimmick (at least until they got sick of it, banned it, and then randomly brought it back in the 1800s)?
This is ultimately just an appeal to tradition. "It's older and we've bought into the excuse behind it for longer, that makes it better and real-er!" Well sorry, I hate the shatter the magic a bit here, but all holidays — much like genders — are just social constructs. If half the world randomly decides that tomorrow is Dinosaur Day and celebrate by running around screeching with their wrists close to their chest like a t-rex, that's just as valid as any other holiday. Every holiday, at some point, was pulled out of someone's ass and then later propped up with stories and justifications that don't really have anything to do with the real reason it was created. It doesn't matter, people should not have to provide you with a morally pure origin story to engage in a celebration, the only good enough reason they need is because they want to. No one date is intrinsically special, if Hallmark can turn February 14th into card selling day because they say so, why can't people turn it into sincere love day because they say so? Nobody is making them buy the damn cards, after all.
"It's consumerist!"
'Kay, how much did all those costumes, candy, turkeys, alcohol, tiny flags, fireworks, and hunks of colorful "Paw Patrol"-themed plastic for your nephew cost again?
Honestly, the only people who have a right to judge others for being consumerist in this society are the Amish. Every time I hear someone getting on their high horse about it, I think of that scene from South Park where Stan's dad makes a lengthy rant about how people with credit card debt are all just idiots who buy stupid crap they don't need, all while making an elaborate smoothie with some huge new blender he bought. Hey Mr. Anti-Flowers-and-Chocolates, how well was that fifteenth anime waifu figurine you bought delivered? How about that recreation of a Medieval sword that you'll never swing at anyone? That library full of video games you'll never play that you only bought because you were seduced by a Steam sale? The PlayStation 5 that you got when your PlayStation 3 works just fine? All those tickets for every new Marvel movie you just had to see in theaters? Teach us, o wise one, the ways of your monastery lifestyle.
The stupid crap that you waste money on to fill the hole in your soul is not any more superior than anyone else's, I promise you.
"It causes fights becausewomenpeople have such high expectations for it thatmentheir partners can't achieve!"
Sounds like a you problem. Valentine's Day is not a magic spell that brainwashed your girlfriend into acting like a greedy abusive asshole, she acted like a greedy abuse asshole because she chose to act like a greedy abusive asshole. A rational person who is worth your time does not throw a tantrum over not getting a candlelit dinner and diamond necklace right after your work shift just because of the calendar. Stop making excuses for them and reevaluate your relationship, because that's where the problem is, not the holiday.
"What about single people?"
What about them? Oh, because you're single and you don't feel like you can participate, therefore everybody else has to stop what they're doing to make you feel better? What a petty, selfish mentality. That's the mentality of a child whose permissive parents let them blow out the candles on their older sibling's birthday and ride their new bike first because otherwise they'd be jealoooooooous. If this is how you approach events that don't revolve around you, perhaps you are not as much of a victim in your singlehood as you think you are.
Besides, it's not even true that you can't participate. Children who are too young to engage in romance make it about giving love to their family, friends, and teachers. And you can't do that too, why exactly...? Buy your mom some roses. Take your friends out for drinks and dinner (on a non-COVID19 day) and tell them how much you appreciate the way they've been there for you. Volunteer or donate to a charity to express your love for mankind. It's really not that hard to figure something out if you really want to, you just have to choose to want to, instead of choosing to wallow in a self-pitying haze of sexual fantasy.
"YOU JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND BECAUSE YOU'RE NOT SINGLE AND LONELY LIKE ME!!!!"
I've never been with anyone in my life. I get lonely and insecure all the time. The difference is that I don't let those feelings consume me and I don't try to make them everyone else's problem. I don't justify an unwillingness to deal with them with cynical pseudo-wokeness. If you can't do the same, it's time to get a therapist.
FYI: If you're already constantly miserable, falling in love is not going to make you happy. A lover cannot fix you and it's selfish and often abusive of you to expect them to. Your lover will always be their own person with their own needs and flaws, they're not a fairy godmother who can erase your social anxiety, make you feel less fat or skinny, cure your addiction, or be everything you need in human connection. Only you can do the actual work in changing all that, they can support you, but they can't drag your ass across the finish line for you. There is nothing you can't accomplish single that you could with a lover.
Maybe that's your solution right there: Make Valentine's Day about being able to get the point where you can love yourself.
I don't have some grand love for Valentine's Day, it's just an okay holiday for me. What I do have a problem with is people who rag on harmless fun to make themselves feel smarter and deeper. Like I already said, hating Valentine's Day (or really any holiday) does not make you seem intellectual or like you've "seen past the bullshit," just judgmental, jealous, and irrationally obsessive. It's an excuse to give out candy, not a lofty "Brave New World"-esque conspiracy, calm down people.
