Forever, really. Every year Valentine’s Day comes and goes, and every year I see ad blitzes for romantic comedies, overpriced teddy bears, and pajama deliveries.
Nobody actually likes the day. People in relationships hate the pressure it adds. Single people hate the reminders of being anywhere from an extra wheel to a second class citizen. Valentine’s is when you remember you are very much alone, that you were passed over for a promotion because you weren’t married and the other guy had a wife to pay for (true story for me and several friends), and that one chick decided instead of spending the day with you as planned she’d go spend the weekend with a guy she met the night before. Or that the woman you went on that fantastic date with will talk about how she doesn’t want a relationship with anyone.
It’s a crappy day for everyone who isn’t selling flowers. Although to be fair, more and more companies get in on the act. Even Sony is offering Valentine’s promotions on the Playstation Network, and NHL 10 has gotten Valentine’s related in-game ads. Really, I find the in-game ads most puzzling, the demographic least likely to celebrate Valentine’s gets the most intrusive ads.
But nobody ACTUALLY celebrates Valentine’s. People just get depressed on it over never living up to expectations. Even Christmas manages to come out as a better day for most people, even Thanksgiving which has two fights built in. There’s no real romance to the day, it’s “Hey, look what I’ve got and you don’t” at most. It’s a damn near objectivist holiday. A purer form of consumerism than Christmas has become, and how better to celebrate the martyrdoms of two Saints named Valentine? Buy some crap you nor your partner will like. A cheap paper sentiment, chalk flavored candy with illiterate scrawling, some bad chocolate, and according to the commercials, sit in adjacent tubs while your resurrected erection goes to waste after popping a pill.
I say to hell with it, it’s time to recognize this day as the blight of a social obligation it is, wherein you’re forced to spend exorbitant amounts of money on shit, or be reminded that nobody will ever love you.That if you buy less than the next guy (and let’s be fair, it’s usually men who have to buy all this), you don’t love your partner as much. But you can ask a Walgreens gift advisor for help fixing that! Buy more mylar balloons! Buy more bags of fattening candy that’s somehow worse than candy corn, but is purchased anyway because of the heart shapes! Enjoy the continued ad blitz wherein every break is composed of Vermont Teddy Bear, Cialis, Pajamagram, Cialis, Vermont Teddy Bear.
It’s my belief that we must immediately begin calling Valentine’s VD. Clearly it IS a disease, leading to poverty, depression, and self-injury, so the moniker is appropriate. Beyond that, given time, it should acquire RAS (redundant acronym syndrome) syndrome, as with PIN number and ATM machine.. Soon everyone will call it VD Day, and perhaps, given the unpleasant connotation forget about it entirely. Nobody’s going to buy a Vermont Teddy Bear or Pajamagram (which, by the way, are part of the same company) for VD Day.