Not Celebrating Valentine’s Day

First, a side rant — why are there ads for the last two or three weeks that start with, “Valentine’s Day is February 14th!!!”

Valentine’s Day is not a “floating” holiday like Easter, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Thanksgiving, and so on. It’s fixed on the calendar, like Christmas, Groundhog Day, or New Year’s Day. So why do these advertising morons feel it is so freakin’ necessary to remind us over and over and over what day the “holiday” falls on?

Of course, they also have ads that say “Christmas Day is December 25th!!!” and “New Year’s Day is January 1st!!!” God help us, they probably have ads that say “The Fourth of July is July 4th!!!” So, in the end it boils down to:

1. Are we really that stupid?
2. Are we just fine and the ad agencies only think we’re that stupid?
3. Are we just fine and the ad agencies are that stupid?
4. Are we all freakin’ idiots? (Sorry, this last option might be a trick question.)

As for the “holiday” itself, The Long-Suffering Wife and I are not today and never have celebrated Valentine’s Day. I consider this to be a good thing, and not just because I don’t have to “perform” by buying an appropriate amount of candy or flowers or jewelry or whatever.  Our lack of fervor over this supposed holiday is actually due to The Long-Suffering Wife’s views on the day, and I happen to agree with her reasons.

Others dislike the holiday for their own (highly valid) reasons. For example, The Bloggess refers to it as “a ridiculous non-holiday made to make everyone feel insecure about their relationship” among other things. Then there are some wonderful cartoons from Ursula Vernon at her Red Wombat Studios blog, especially this one that’s been passed around the internet circles that I lurk in. There are many more “Valentine Day deniers” that are left as an exercise for the student to find.

But that’s not why The Long-Suffering Wife has always instructed me to ignore Valentine’s Day and forbidden me to get her anything for the day. (Well, when she first told me she was The Should-Have-Known-Better Fiancé instead of The Long-Suffering Wife, but that’s a different story.) Her reasoning is that because of the social pressure and marketing and sales tsunami that Valentine’s Day involves, too many couples, and guys in particular, are forced to perform and buy things and demonstrate their love on that one arbitrary day. It’s all marketing and peer pressure and fear of punishment, having little to do with actual love.

Her view is that, if you really love someone and care for them and want them to be happy, you should show that every day, not on this one day picked out by Hallmark and Madison Avenue.

This is a wise point of view. We celebrate other holidays and events, such as Christmas, birthdays, anniversaries, and so on. But we also both make a point to try to make each other happy every day, as well as find reasons to give each other something special now and then. When I send her flowers at work a couple of times a year, it’s not because “IT’S VALENTINE’S DAY AND HALLMARK HAS BEATEN ME INTO SUBMISSION AND I GOT SOME $2 FLOWERS FOR $20 FROM A GUY AT THE BOTTOM OF THE FREEWAY OFFRAMP”, it’s because I want her to be happy and surprised and reminded that I lover her.

This is neither a subtle or a small difference. The Long-Suffering Wife is wise.