Today is Valentines day.
Up until a few years ago, I bought into the “romantic” idea of it.
I don’t anymore. I guess you might have got that from the title of this post already 😉
I think it ‘s a piece of commercial bullshit, and it just makes me laugh, to be honest.
The whole thing is a fake.
I’m not a sad, lonely, Valentines day pooper, envious of my coupled friends by the way, I am happily married.
But love isn’t about giving your loved one presents on a day prescribed by the cards and flowers industry.
Love is about all the normal every day things you do for each other. Love is about support when the going gets tough.
Once when I lived in Paris I had a boyfriend who was “romantic” in the sense that he wrote me love notes all the time. Like the time he wrote “I love you” on each one of my eggs in the fridge. It made my girlfriends swoon. Only when I had a bad day at work, he didn’t want to know.
It wasn’t love. It was show-off bullshit.
It was buying into the outdated idea of romantic love being ideal and all smooth and glossy.
That love is only the lovely pink fluffy time when fall in love and everything is perfect.
Having had this experience makes me appreciate my husband more. He isn’t a romantic note kind of person but he is a rock when I have wobbles, like the time he woke up at 5am to listen to me talk and hugged me whilst I cried when I came back from a long, difficult birth. That’s worth a million “I love you” eggs.
Even when I lived in Paris and still bought into the whole thing, I saw men walking home with a single rose, and it felt fake. I remember hearing a news report on the radio saying “Today is Valentines day-this is the day when your wife will be angry if you don’t come home with a rose”. That sums it up really.
I don’t buy into the idea of having to show love, to show romance, to buy stuff on a day prescribed by the industry which benefits from it. It sprouts every where: supermarkets, cards shops, flower shops, chocolate shops, the list is endless.
I don’t buy into the idea that one’s love is measured by the gift received on valentines day.
I am saddened that personal “romance validation” rests on whether one receives cards/flowers etc or not at the office.
It’s all show and no substance.
A restaurateur once told me that this is the busiest night of the year-busier even than holiday celebrations.
When I used to buy into the Valentines thing, I used to go out with my then boyfriend for evening meal. It was hard to find a table somewhere nice. I now couldn’t think of anything worse than spending the evening in a packed restaurant, “having” to be romantic, surrounded by other couples doing the same thing.
The best nights out often turn out to be spontaneous things with low expectations.
Even at my fucking gym this morning there was a “Valentine days couple retreat” massage table in the hallway, completed with flower petals and LED candles a-flickering.
And don’t get me started with all the over inflated prices of “romantic” items around this time of the year.
Talk about making a quick buck on people’s insecurities.
Give me true real life love every day, warts and all, over the glossy fake version of romantic love peddled by Valentines day and the media.
True real life love, like normal real life life, is a sinusoid curve. It’s full of highs and lows, full of tears and laughter, anger and joy. It’s not photoshopped.
It’s got wrinkles and imperfections.
It’s not always easy.
But it’s real.