Today is Valentine’s Day. I used to hate this day, even when I was in a relationship. It’s a manufactured holiday and one that has morphed into (in the het-norm) ‘Buy an expensive gift for your ladyfriend, otherwise you don’t love her’. There are just too mayn expectations for it to ever hold up.
Side note: That’s my issues with traditions more generally. They just cannot live up to the expectations. Weddings, for example. So many people put in so much time, money, and effort into planning their perfect wedding and then it never goes how they want it to go. Also, so many people say they don’t remmeber anything from their wedding. It always puzzled me because it’s just one day whereas a marriage, presumably, will be for the rest of one’s life. (In theory, anyway.)
Side note to the side note: I read an article many moons ago about how everyone these days is entitled to a starter marriage, as it were. Meaning one marriage that ended in divorce. They made a convincing case for it, including the fact that people live so much longer these days. (Which, not exactly true, but let’s go with it.)
To which I say, “Why restrict yourself to one person?” I am someone who does better when I am not in a monogamous relationship. I think it’s because I don’t feel pressured to be the one and only (read, doing all the emotional support). I get way too focused on the other person in a monogamous relationship.
Anyway. back to Valentine’s Day. When I was working at the county, my boss came in on V-Day in a terrible mood. She showed me a new leather briefcase she had, and it was really nice. Soft, supple, and obviously top quality. It turned out that her husband had given it to her for V-Day. I thought it was a lovely present! Her old briefcase had been in tatters.
She was furious because she wanted a tennis bracelet. She had left out magazines opened to tennis bracelet advertisements around the house, hoping he would get the hint.
I didn’t say this to her (because she was my boss), but I thought she was being ridiculous. First of all, she was a grown woman who could buy her own tennis bracelet. Secondly, if that’s what she really wanted from him, she should have just told him. Yes, I know it’s not as romantic, but depending on him to take in context clues was risky on her part. Thirdly, his actual gift was thoughtful. He had noticed that her old briefcase was falling apart and got her a really nice new one.
I get that some people don’t want something practical, so I can’t totally blame her for that. But again, if she really wanted the tennis bracelet, she should have simply told him.
I say this with sympathy. I used to hope that my exes (then partners) would do something special for me for V-Day. Something that only I had in mind. Whether it was give me flowers or a nice dinner, I never got what I wanted in part because I did not ask for it. I also was the one who put way more effort into the relationships than I got in return. Almost without fail.
I’m a bad partner. That’s what I’m trying to say. Somehow, I both want everything that popular media promises me, and I fuck it up royally. I give too much past the point of reasonableness, and I obsess with the other person. I keep score, and I hold grudges like no one’s business.
I’m also at an age where I just can’t be arsed to fix all the flaws I’d need to fix to be able to be in a healthy relationship. Or to find someone with whom I could be on a regular basis. I’m a great friend. I love my friends, but not in a possessive way. I have no idea why I can’t take that into dating. Well, yes, I actually do. It’s because fo my upbringing, but also my mother’s still outsized effect on me.
One thing I found frustrating in therapy was that I often knew what my problem was and how to fix it. And yet, I still did the behavior because it was so ingrained. So in this case, I know that the reason I’m like that is because my mother made me her emotional support person when I was eleven. She made it very clear that my only worth was in my ability to listen to her dump on me about the problems in her marriage for hours without protest.
As a result, I have a freakish level of empathy. I can read other people’s every minute facial expression and discern why they are behaving the way they are. This is not a flex, by the way. It just is the way I am, and I don’t think that’s a good thing. It stifles actual emotions because it’s hard for me not to read people in real time. And for me not to jump in ahead of them actually reacting.
Back to Valentine’s Day! I actually prefer just treating it like any other day. I don’t like the undertones of “It’s a day for women and men have to twist themselves in pretzels to get laid.”
More to the point, we should be telling the people we love that we love them year-round. We don’t need a Hallmark holiday to prod us to be loving towards those most dear tous. Or rather, we shouldn’t feel pressured to shell out a lot of money on this day to profess our love.
I know I’m spitting in the wind, though. Capitalism is going to capital, and any company that can make money on this day will do so. I can’t even be mad at them because that’s letting the markets decide. All I can do is continue to not participate and pretend it doesn’t exist. I’m pretty good at that.