HOW TO WIN AT VALENTINE'S DAY
As someone who, for the most part, grew up in the Northeast, I feel I have earned the right to declare February the WORST month of the entire year. Sure it’s the shortest, but only because it needs to be- you can’t be the coldest month and have Valentine’s Day at the same time, you just cannot!
Many people do not know this, but Valentine’s Day was founded two million years ago in super-ancient Rome, when Julius Caesar’s sidepiece produced JC Junior, and let me tell you, she was none too inconspicuous about it either. Terrified that his wife would find out, he promised to devote an entire day to his lovely crowd favorite, Valentine, because you can’t let an independent woman who blows the roof off the joint to ‘Hot for Teacher’ on Wednesdays, Fridays, and every other Saturday slip between your fingers gentlemen, you just cannot!
Unfortunately for us, the holiday originally intended to honor the most important (or at least, the second most important) person in our lives has since lost its romantic flair by way mainstream consumerist banality.
Everyone hates Valentine’s Day, everyone. It is obvious why single people would despise it, a day devoted solely to the recognition of already seemingly happy couples, but what many single people are not aware of is this: most couples are not as happy as they seem on the internet, and Valentine’s Day sucks for them too.
Why? How could a day reserved for the honor and appreciation of the one person you love and care for more than any other person in the entire world be awful? Well if you would shut up for five seconds I would tell you! It sucks because it is designed to make us fail, like casinos, or being young and black and a man in America (or a woman pretty much anywhere). Try as we might, there is just no way to win; the entire holiday is riddled with far too many expectations. You can’t go out to eat because it’s too crowded, and neither of your dumb asses had the foresight to make a reservation two weeks ago. So you try to make something at home, hiding under the guise of “romanticism,” but it ends up being disgusting as you have already mixed together all the necessary ingredients before realizing you’re short one egg, leaving you to fancy up some nasty spaghetti with a lame attempt at “garlic bread” as you sit in silent contemplation over whether or not you could actually see yourself having children with this idiot.
It does not have to be this bad. What if I told you, that for the low, low price of $29.95, you can win at Valentine’s, every times! Below I have outlined a brief sample of my kid-tested, mother-approved FIVE POINT GUIDE to surviving Valentine’s Day.
1. Limit expectations. Flowers and chocolates, or maybe even just one or the other, depending on how long you two have been together. When shopping for a man, get nothing. Men do not care about holidays in general, especially not a commercialized piece of shit one like Valentine’s Day. Absolutely under no circumstances are you to attempt to give jewelry. Jewelry is for birthdays, anniversaries, and whatever religious holiday you celebrate the other hundred times a year. If your partner expects jewelry- run. Seriously, who are you? Make sure you swipe the chocolates back up on your way out the door.
2. Don’t be an idiot. This point is kind of an addendum to the first one. Limit expectations, but don’t be an idiot. I don’t care if your partner is one of those cynics who make it a point to tell everyone on Facebook that the original St. Valentine was some child-molesting animal rapist who was burned at the stake for shoplifting canned food donations from the CHOW bin at Wegmans; you cannot just do nothing. Be nicer or scrape their windshield or remember to buy milk or something. I feel like those little considerations tend to mean more anyway (everyone does love chocolate though, wink wink).
3. Celebrate on a different day. I have done this. In fact, I tend to prefer to do this for any day reserved for honor and celebration besides birthdays and anniversaries, as it just takes the “This day is gonna be perfect!” story that you know we all come up with, and decreases the pressure valve just enough to allow some oxygen back into your brain. If you want to spend Valentine’s Day with your love, do it on the following Tuesday or something. This way you definitely get a table, your server will have time to care about what you want, and it really will feel like a day just for you two as everyone else will be at home trying to figure out how to amend that missing eggs debacle from earlier.
4. Just avoid it. Perhaps you are among the millions of people out there who just absolutely hate this holiday, you can easily just “Have to work babe, what do you want me to do?!” Offer to work and get out of the whole thing entirely.
5. Be single. Or if you are really one of those “go big or go home types” just opt out of being involved in a romantic partnership and go it alone on everyone else’s special day (and every other day, for that matter). No one leaves disappointed, and the only person you have to share that heart-shaped Papa John’s pizza with is Y-O-U! Now get back to masturbating and marathon-watching whatever new show is on Netflix, you losers!
Valentine’s Day: sure it’s stupid, but it’s only one day of the year. And if I’ve said it once I’ve said it a hundred times, it’s spelled “Valentimes” Day, as in, “How many times do I need to ask if you really mean it when you say ‘no gifts’ before it’s safe to think you might actually mean it?” Pick up a book every once in a while, gosh.
