Valentine's Day is a tongue waggling, name calling brat of a holiday. For the insensitive and immature, Valentine's Day presents an opportunity to shamelessly exclaim to the world at large,"Look at me, weighed down with stuffed animals and pink carnations and red balloons and roses and chocolates! I'm no Charlie Brown! I'm popular! I am L-O-V-E-D!" Junior high school cheerleaders come to mind, prissing down the hallway with smeared lipgloss and big red bows in their hair while "I Want Candy" by Bow Wow Wow plays in the background. Valentine's Day is to misfits/the recently widowed/the recently divorced, separated or dumped what Thanksgiving Day is to anorexics or Christmas is to people who live in cardboard boxes...a merciless, raging hell. For lovers and married folks there is a thrilling variety of ways to celebrate February fourteenth, and none are original or ironic. There are carriage rides in the park, candlelit dinners, sappy movies such as "Sleepless in Seattle" or "Serendipity" to watch while sharing a bowl of popcorn...the only limits to such contrived Barbie and Ken scenarios are budget and imagination.
This loverliest of holidays can actually be more fun for people who are not attached. Masochists can listen to Billie Holiday and Otis Redding in the dark, getting drunk on cheap wine and crying out,"When will I be loved?"...knowing that there will be no answer. Cynics can decry the grotesque commercialism of the holiday and smirk with grim satisfaction at hand-holding couples flaunting their togetherness in public, perhaps going so far as to wear matching t-shirts or jogging suits. The more mischievous can pull stunts like Enid and Rebecca in "Ghost World." Answer some poor loser's personal ad and then watch from a safe distance when they show up for a rendezvous that won't occur.
Couples who take Valentine's Day seriously and go all out with their celebration are easy targets. Is there anything more nauseating than being alone and seeing a googly eyed couple sharing a sundae? It isn't envy. It's disgust. Because there isn't much truth to Valentine's Day. Romantic love isn't always cute and it definitely isn't always sweet. The last thing romantic love should bring out in a human being is a feeling of smugness or superiority. After all, Cupid is a fickle little fucker. Sometimes the arrows don't stick. Cher sings it clearly enough for any idiot to understand:"Sooner or later, we all sleep alone."