Valentine's Day always feels cheap
Jacqueline Kharouf, Opinions Editor
Issue date: 2/12/08 Section: Perspectives
Really, we don't need any of it.
And yet, we still want it and still like it too. But I don't think wanting all that this day supposedly signifies has to do with the day at all. Rather, it has to do with the person we want to spend all our days with.
Love is complicated enough. (Who in their right mind decided to throw in this extra day just to add to the complication?!) Why do we need a day to stuff how we feel into stereotypes that significantly diminish not only what we'd like to express, but who we really are?
Women are not little girls-we do not want candy or flowers (especially not fake flowers) or diamonds (my best friends are real people, thank you very much) or a movie. We don't expect men to bend over backwards, just like men should not expect us to turn into mush if they *gasp!* buy flowers or comb their hair.
No! Not all women are insane demigods demanding furs and jewels and perfumes (dar-link). Au contraire! What we want is something so immeasurable, so simple, and so insatiably delicious that if we all really admitted it, no one would ever buy another cheap, poorly written Valentine's card again - we want to be understood for who we are. It is what women have wanted since the beginning of time. (Poor Eve was so misunderstood.)
And too, I think it's really what everyone wants, no matter our sexual orientation or situation. We don't want to be covered (or lavished) with something that smothers us or puts our feelings in neat little boxes or phrases (or cheesy movie lines). We want to be whole selves that can share that wholeness with someone else, not so that we are dependent on someone else to be our truest selves, but that we can be independent components of something wholly different and real.
Sometimes it seems we fall in love with love, not the people around us. If we just loved the people in our days, each day, then we wouldn't need one day to make it obvious at all.
And yet, we still want it and still like it too. But I don't think wanting all that this day supposedly signifies has to do with the day at all. Rather, it has to do with the person we want to spend all our days with.
Love is complicated enough. (Who in their right mind decided to throw in this extra day just to add to the complication?!) Why do we need a day to stuff how we feel into stereotypes that significantly diminish not only what we'd like to express, but who we really are?
Women are not little girls-we do not want candy or flowers (especially not fake flowers) or diamonds (my best friends are real people, thank you very much) or a movie. We don't expect men to bend over backwards, just like men should not expect us to turn into mush if they *gasp!* buy flowers or comb their hair.
No! Not all women are insane demigods demanding furs and jewels and perfumes (dar-link). Au contraire! What we want is something so immeasurable, so simple, and so insatiably delicious that if we all really admitted it, no one would ever buy another cheap, poorly written Valentine's card again - we want to be understood for who we are. It is what women have wanted since the beginning of time. (Poor Eve was so misunderstood.)
And too, I think it's really what everyone wants, no matter our sexual orientation or situation. We don't want to be covered (or lavished) with something that smothers us or puts our feelings in neat little boxes or phrases (or cheesy movie lines). We want to be whole selves that can share that wholeness with someone else, not so that we are dependent on someone else to be our truest selves, but that we can be independent components of something wholly different and real.
Sometimes it seems we fall in love with love, not the people around us. If we just loved the people in our days, each day, then we wouldn't need one day to make it obvious at all.
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