Celebrating Valentine’s Day?
Then you can add “certified dickhead” to your resume.
I’d cut you slack if you were a teenager. Or if you’d just moved to this country from somewhere you’re not obligated to profess your love by springing for a prix fixe dinner.
Cause if that were the case then you’d just be ignorant. A sucker. An easy score for marketers who know the heartstrings also tug the wallet.
However, that’s not you. You’ve been around. You know the deal, and what Valentine’s Day is all about.
Yet here you are, once again, scrambling to get flowers and a seat at the some douchey hotspot that will probably switch over to a Papa Guido’s by St. Patrick’s Day.
I’m not the first to criticize Valentine’s Day.
You’ve read it before — it’s contrived, commercialized, and expensive.
Devoid of meaning. The married couple version of the equally overhyped New Years Eve, minus any ball dropping. Well, the ruse is that will happen after you get home from dinner, provided you’re lucky enough to get a table.
Rubbish.
I should qualify – I like the spirit behind Valentine’s Day. It’s easy to take the special person in your life for granted. A spot on the calendar that makes you pause and acknowledge that person is a wonderful idea.
You should probably do that monthly, even weekly. Heck, change Sunday to Valentine-day. Just not during football season.
But what rubs guys the wrong way about February 14th is the superficiality of it, and that we’re getting so obviously, flagrantly hosed.
And above all, men hate getting hosed.
I mean, at least bamboozle me. Hoodwink me. Sell me an overpriced Smart TV with 4-D technology that my cable provider won’t support until 2030. I can live with that.
But guilt me into dropping 300 bucks on a meal that I know will leave me jonesing for a hamburger by 10pm and I have issues. You’re pissing all over my leg, and I don’t need to be a meteorologist to know it’s not raining.
I also don’t like the obligation factor. Take the sweetest idea and turn it into an assault on a guy’s sensibilities (and credit card) and he’ll eventually resent it, even see it as a chore. Something he “has” to do, lest he get labeled a “typical man.”
Finally, I don’t like how some men (and women) see it as a kind of “get out of jail for the price of dinner” card. Like if you spring for flowers and fondue you can somehow atone for a whole year’s worth of unrequited douchbaggery.
So should we shitcan Valentine’s Day?
Put in the same box as other holidays that fell victim to commercialism and marketing agendas?
I say no. Valentine’s Day isn’t hopeless. We just need to make it more like Halloween.
Halloween is awesome. It’s what Valentine’s Day could be if it loosened up and grew a pair of functioning testicles.
Admittedly, Halloween can be a little cheesy — and depending on the city you live in, even a little creepy — but I’ll take that over contrived and stuffy.
First, unlike Valentine’s Day, Halloween is for everyone.
Kids get to dress up and have parties and go trick or treating. And because it’s not a “real” holiday they still have to go to school, so you’re not stuck babysitting the monsters while their tweaking off sugar in that overpriced Spongebob costume.
Yet it’s for adults too. Some even dress up for work. 364 days a year your boss is the guy in the corner office with the massive stick up his ass; October 31st he shows up to work covered in tanning lotion. “Look, I’m John Boehner,” he blubbers to anyone within earshot.
And at night after the kids are safely in a near-diabetic coma, the adults can go out to play. Guys love it because many of the costumes women choose have an overtly sexual theme – it’s never just a female State Trooper, it’s a female State Trooper in a micro-mini-skirt holding a night stick that looks like a prop from a porn set.
On the other side, women love it cause guys actually allow themselves to be goofy and creative and have fun, and not be so concerned about saving face and looking manly.
Even if you opt to take a pass on the day entirely and just stay home and channel surf, on Halloween you get zombie movies. On Valentine’s Day you also get zombie movies, except it’s a romantic comedy starring Jennifer Aniston and that fit to fat guy from 300.
Look, I get it: Halloween is for singles and Valentine’s Day is for couples; Halloween is about sex and Valentine’s Day is about love.
Screw that. I say it’s time the married people get to have fun and dress up like Fred and Wilma and stay up all night being naughty.
Let the singles fight for reservations at that “hot” overpriced Belgian-Korean gastropub. I’ll be sure to stop by in two weeks and grab a 99-cent slice of pizza after the grand reopening.