The other day, GTB and I were driving around Seattle, enjoying a few minutes’ respite between wind storms when I said, “What are your feelings about Valentine’s Day?”

“Oh, well, um, I think it’s a pretty comercial holiday, but I can see how it’s a good opportunity to demon…”

“Because I HATE it!” I interrupted.

Sounding a bit relieved he said, “OK, that’s good.” After a few seconds of quiet, he asked, “Wait, why do you hate it?”

I gave him my rote response about how it’s a high-pressure, completely invented observance that does nothing more than make me feel bad. When I’m single, I feel crappy because I don’t have anyone to share it with. When I’m coupled up, I feel all this pressure to get the perfect gift and even more pressure to be gracious about whatever gift I receive, even if it sucks, which it usually does. There really is no winning when it comes to Valentine’s Day. But not celebrating it doesn’t seem to be an option.

The few attempts I’ve made to rally against this stupid day by throwing an Anti-V Day party or choosing to go out with girlfriends to demonstrate our firm stance against anything so saccharine and false have been met with low turnouts and/or “Geez, Girl, why so bitter?”s.

I fully respect couples who choose to celebrate this particular holiday by making romantic dinner plans or sending each other flowers. Good on ya. Knock yourselves out. As long as both partners are into it.

But what really bugs me about Valentine’s Day is this. It’s like reverse guilt. Men feel cornered on how to appropriately mark the day. They are flummoxed at the prospect of shopping for yet another gift so soon after the winter holidays. They are guilted into spending money/time/effort in order to get the right gift. And, in reading or hearing about this male dilemma, I’m made to feel guilty about the torture we women put these poor souls through.

Fuck that!

I know stuff like this is mostly tongue in cheek, and that people like to make jokes about inevitable couply problems like gift buying on dubious holidays. But it makes me insane. I will never understand women who feel the need to guilt men into getting them the right gift. Maybe I’m just too easy on guys, but if my boyfriend or husband wanted to write me a check and drop me off at Nordstrom, I’d kiss his sweet little cheek goodbye for the next several hours and spend that time equally divided between shopping for my next great pair of little black boots and reflecting on how I’d found the perfect man.

Fortunately, GTB’s birthday is February 13. So we will be spending the next several days anticipating THAT fun day. If I take him to dinner on Sunday night, it will be to celebrate the fact that he was born, and after thirty-something years, finds himself lucky enough to be spending time with a girl like me who doesn’t like Valentine’s Day and prefers gift certificates to handmade heart-shaped popsicle-stick birdcages, or whatever.

Of course, I do like flowers.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 10th, 2006 at 12:29 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.