Down With Valentine's Day!

I hate Valentine’s Day with the burning fire of a thousand suns.

                I didn’t always feel this way.  When I was a small child, I saw it as an occasion to be spoiled with chocolate and parties in school.  Around about fifth grade, I began noticing that my stack of Valentines was always smaller than everyone else’s, and after that the “holiday” became a negative day, fraught with anxiety.  Instead of being a day where you find out how much you are loved, it became a day to find out you are not loved.  It sucks.

                Only twice has a partner made the slightest attempt to live up to the hype.  The first time, a version of which I related in The Playground, my psychotic boyfriend Chris gave me a fake Tiffany charm bracelet on sale for $8.95 at Macy’s.  I would have been thrilled with the gift, had his snooty sister not cornered me in the kitchen to announce that she picked out the bracelet, that it was a copy of one sold by Tiffany’s, and she owned the “real one” of course.

                That ruined it for me.  Looking back, that encounter is almost comical. It is unutterably sad that his sister had to spoil the occasion.  However, Chris does get helluva points in my mind.  He tried to make it a nice Valentine’s Day.  It wasn’t his fault his sister has a big mouth. 

                The second time was with my long-term boyfriend, who was extremely cheap when it came to everyone but himself.  He never had money for gifts or meals or movies or to pay his child support or his bills, but always had plenty for cigarettes, pot, and alcohol.  Valentine’s Day with him was always difficult, especially since his birthday fell a few days before, and he was adopted.  Every year, he would start whining about wanting to find his real mother, but never actually did anything other than pay it lip service.  (I researched it and found out all you had to do was make a request in writing to your county’s department of social services.  They would contact your birth parents at their last known address according to the IRS and ask them for permission to reveal their identity.  He wouldn’t do that, but constantly posted stupid things like “Have you seen me?” on Facebook, like his frigging friends  knew his birth parents and were keeping it a secret.  Don’t even get me started.  Too late, I guess).

                Also, he and his wife broke up in February.

                He hated February.  He nonstop bitched to me about how much he hated February and told me I had no idea what he went through every February and I didn’t understand.  I would respond that no, I don’t understand, since my father died February 24^th and I didn’t whine every February about it.  His response was to roll his eyes, because how dare I also have something traumatic happen in February and steal his thunder.

                Our first Valentine’s Day we literally had just gotten together, like, that day.  There were no gifts exchanged, because just being together was a gift. (Vomit).

                But, the next time Valentine’s Day rolled around, I had a horrible, sneaking suspicion that he wasn’t planning on getting me anything.  Even though I had just given him a Kindle Fire for his birthday.   (You might be wondering what that cost.  $250).

                I called him up to discuss it, rather than end up having a huge fight over it.  I asked him if he planned on doing anything for the holiday.  He told me he was going to get his daughters (eight and nine, respectively) a dozen red roses each. 

                “I want them to know what it’s like to get flowers for Valentine’s Day,” he informed me.

                I said, “I’ve never gotten flowers for Valentine’s Day.”

                Long silence.  Then he said, “Well, don’t you think I might be sending you the wrong idea by giving you flowers for Valentine’s Day?  I mean, we just went through a rocky patch, don’t you think it’s too soon for me to be giving you a gift like that?”

                I said, “As someone who was once a little girl, I can tell you that your eight and nine-year-old daughters do not want a dozen red roses for Valentine’s Day.  They want chocolate.  That’s a ridiculous expense.  A waste of money.” 

                I hung up the phone tremendously irritated, because all I wanted was to get flowers from someone once, and he was making a point of telling me he was getting them not for me, but his kids.  Almost rubbing it in my face.  When I knew his kids didn’t want them.  This man who balked at spending five bucks on dinner was about to drop sixty dollars on long stemmed roses for an eight-year-old when all three of us would be satisfied with chocolate. 

                When next we met up, having sort of gotten the message, he presented me with one of those 1.99 chocolate hearts.  Like I said, I wasn’t fussy, so I was thrilled.  But then he opened his mouth and ruined it.  “I got a bunch, even one for my mom, since they were seventy percent off the day after Valentine’s Day.”  Eye roll.

                Well, something is better than nothing when it comes to Valentine’s Day. I was happy.  I didn’t ask whether he’d given his daughters roses.  I had gotten flowers myself, by the way.  My sister sent a bouquet to my office.  I let everyone think they were from my boyfriend.

                Then, it was our third year.  I had yet to buy him anything for his birthday.  I told him to pick something out.  Unfortunately for me, I didn’t specify a monetary amount.  He took to me Walmart and decided on a three- hundred-dollar three -dimensional large screen monitor for one of his computers because he was trying to turn his basement into a gaming room. 

                Then he announced, sweeping his hand around the store, “Pick out whatever you want for Valentine’s Day, as long as it’s under ten dollars.”

                I think I actually laughed out loud.  Classy.  Here’s ten dollars, buy yourself something nice at The Walmart.

                By the fourth year, we were running on fumes.  I’d had it with him, for so many reasons.  This turned out to not only be our last Valentine’s Day together, but the last time we even saw each other.  He finally pulled out all the stops.  He showered me with chocolates, a card, and a gift.  Took me out to dinner and got a room with a hot tub at the Best Western.  All the cliché Valentine Day things, and it was sad, because it was everything I ever wanted and yet I didn’t want it from him.  It was too late. 

                Last year, I was dating a new guy.  It was going great up until we fought ten days before the holiday.  Things were kind of weird after.  I had a horrible, sneaking suspicion that I wasn’t getting anything for Valentine’s Day, and I couldn’t sleep at night.  Not because not getting anything disturbed me, but because I would have to confront what that meant about our relationship.  It meant we were doomed.  And I turned out to be right.

                Valentine’s Day is a horrible holiday.  Any other day of the year I am a generous person, a giver, someone who rarely asks for anything.  But when this holiday rolls around I turn greedy and anxious, wanting to make sure I get something, and it’s not because I really want a stupid ten-dollar box of chocolates, it’s because of what this holiday represents to me.

                We’re told it’s supposed to be a day to express love, but it becomes a day to gauge, through cheap gifts and gestures, your worth in this world.  I’ve heard Valentine’s Day is hard when you’re single, and that’s true.  I’ve found that Valentine’s Day is worse when you’re not single.  Because the only thing worse than having no one on Valentine’s Day is having someone not care enough about your feelings to give you anything.

                I’d rather be single, every time.  I’d prefer to know I’m going to be buying a gift for myself rather than chew my fingernails with anxiety wondering if the guy I’m currently dating thinks I’m worth a gift.  Valentine’s Day is when the people you love give gifts, but I’ve found that men (the men I tend to date, anyway) use it as an occasion to subtly send me the message they don’t love me.  Why have a big scene when you can express your lack of love without saying a word?

                Honestly, I don’t know anyone who likes this stupid holiday.  I vaguely remember a female voice somewhere in my past squealing, “I love Valentine’s Day!” and I want to reach back in time and cut her off mid squeal with my hand around her throat.  Fortunately, I don’t remember who that was. 

                Everyone I know has an awful story about Valentine’s Day, and I read somewhere that it is one of the days you are most likely to break up. (December 9^th is the number one break up day of the year, because people see it as the last opportunity to pull the plug before the holidays, and yes, I did break up with Steve, whom I dated in 2011, on December 9^th).  Valentine’s Day forces couples to take the temperature of their relationship, and the pressure brings out people’s ugly sides. 

                How am I celebrating Valentine’s Day this year?  With a .99 Kindle Countdown deal of my book, Woman Scorned,(shameless plug here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07711LFVN)  which was written by the bitter single girl lurking within me.  Ever wanted to enact a terrible revenge on a former lover who grievously wronged you?  The main character does precisely that, in a sick, twisted way that will hopefully have you on the edge of your seat.  It’s the anti-Valentine’s Day book. 

                And yeah, I’ll probably be binge eating chocolate I bought myself while watching reruns of The Big Bang Show. What could be better?