“Hello,” Bob said as he approached his lady love. “Mandatory couple participation holiday number one is upon us once more.”
“Did you get me a card?” asked Sarah.
“Yes,” replied Bob. “I got you a card. It is red. It came from Walmart. I love you.”
“I didn’t get you anything because I’m a woman,” Sarah said. “But I also love you.”
After that heartwarming exchange, the happy couple hopped into Bob’s truck, drove to Olive Garden, waited 40 minutes for a table with all the other happy couples and had casual conversation over the closest thing to Italian food that they could find. They had desert though, so it was special. Happy Valentine’s Day.
There’s no way that you could convince me that you go hard in life if you’re in a committed relationship and don’t go hard on Valentine’s Day. If you receive snuggles from a female on even a semi-regular basis, you better cook up something that will make her single friends absolutely nauseous with misery when she runs back to brag about what an awesome time she had. Otherwise, you aren’t sucking the marrow out of this 80 year feast of mortality that the good Lord bestowed upon you. You aren’t even scarfing down all the meat. If life were a wing eating contest, lackluster Valentine’s Day guy would be that dude that the judge is always having to hover over to make sure he picks the bones clean. That’s a shameful title if ever I’ve heard one.
Everybody’s had someone in their life that they cared about to a downright embarrassing degree, even if it was a platonic or unrequited thing. At the same time though, that girl that’s got you skipping down the sidewalk humming “You Are My Sunshine” to yourself is still just a cog in the big bad hate machine that is the world like everyone else. They might oversleep on that all important morning when they were going to start their workout plan. Some hidden or underemphasized stress might be weighing on them, eating away at their peace of mind. They might have to interact on a daily basis with someone who doesn’t see them in the light that you do, someone who might disrespect them or make life just a horrifyingly tiny bit more difficult. Whatever the case is, we’re all just human, and if we forget it, something will surely come along and remind us. Don’t you want to let your special someone know, in a way sincere enough to communicate it with exactly the depth that you mean it, that they’re the best? That they’ve got the power to make you go weak in the knees whenever you see them in the distance? That they deserve to feel as special as you’ve realized that they are?
You can’t let the romance in your life die, and I’m not talking about the ooey-gooey, kissing over a sunset in a hot-air balloon kind of romance. I’m talking about that sense of magic that momentarily transforms you into a noir film detective every time you let yourself stare out of a car window on a rainy night. Don’t see Valentine’s Day as another dumb societal construct of the capitalist fat cats to sell cards and flowers. See it as an opportunity to inject a little extra happiness into the typical day-to-day of someone that you care for. And if you’re that couple that’s planning on sitting on the couch, watching Netflix and eating junk food together because normal people things are “dumb” and you both “just want to be lazy anyway,” don’t let it be just a typical hang out session. Maybe while you’re waiting for the pizza to show up and she’s deciding on which flavor of cookie dough to gorge herself on first, read her a little note you had taken the time to write before hand. Tell her that even in the sweatpants that she first binge watched all of “30 Rock” in, she looks breathtaking enough to turn heads at even the most hoity-toity of high teas. On the day that has been specifically set aside for you to do something other than choke down your feelings, don’t act like the whole thing is just some kind of obligation that you have to trudge through. Shirk the cynicism of our generation and accept that the world is a magical place if only for the fluttering of your heart whenever you make your precious honey-dew melon crack a smile.
As a side note to all of this, don’t equate “magic” with money. Expressing yourself is free. Write something, say something, find a way to convey the message of “you’re awesome” rather than “it’s Valentine’s day so I did a thing.”
Pair some genuine emotion with even the tinniest heartfelt gesture, and it’ll be more memorable than blowing a sizable chunk of change just because you were expected to do something.
If you’ve gagged your way through the entirety of this strange mixture of advice column and purple prose, remember the words of the Macho Man Randy Savage.
“The true macho man feels the full spectrum of emotions, ohhhh yeeeaah!”
And if you’re a girl, don’t let your man carry the team this year, you lazy trollop.
