I woke up after a long nap yesterday, went about my business and promptly got assaulted by a sea of red. I hate red in most things but none surpasses red clothes. If I were Neo in The Matrix, I wouldn’t have given the woman in red a second look. And I’d have taken the blue pill. So nauseous was I of all the red that I had to come back inside and catch my breath. I put on the tube and some dude was bleating about the season of love or something. That was when I realized it was Valentine’s day. The blasted Valentine’s day.
I hate Valentine’s Day and all the commotion that comes along with it. Other people who tell you they don’t believe in Valentine’s because one should have a loving nature 365 days a year only piss me off even more. I could wait for a leap year and lynch all of such people.
In secondary school I bought this girl I fancied, but never really talked to, some expensive biscuits and an even more expensive greeting card. If you are thinking it was on Valentine’s day, you’re wrong. The occasion was her birthday but her birthday was so close to Valentine’s day my friends figured I could have two shots at the big kahuna.. The plan was give her the presents for her birthday and while she’s still thinking about how awesome I was, ask her out on a date with the Valentine thing as some sort of cover. Allow me to explain what cover means. The cover here signifies saving face in case she rejects you or even if she accepts the offer; she knows it’s more like a seasonal thing and you may or may not be interested in her per se but you have to go out with somebody because it is Valentine’s day and it might as well be her.
So the school has closed for the day and it is time to go in for the kill. I spot her outside eating my expensive biscuits. Sweet, I thought. She must be loving those and she might just say yes without giving much thought as to how short I am. She would have me on her palate if not her mind. There was no time to waste. Summarizing a long and traumatic story, I asked her to be that most ambiguous thing called ‘my val’ and she says to me, while drowning my expensive biscuits in her alimentary canal, that she already had a val. Huh? I wasn’t prepared for this variation in the script. I was ready to name the time and place but this response doesn’t solicit a time and place. In that instant it hit me that my allowance was getting crushed by her molars and my heart sunk. I was fourteen years old. I think if I was a woman, I’d have gone out with me back then. I was a sweet little thing..
This anecdote isn’t really why I hate Valentine’s day though it’s a major contributor. What drives me nuts now is that I find grownup men and women, acting like February 14th is a day ordained by God almighty to love someone or die trying. Some people that think that just because it’s Valentine’s day, I’d suddenly love your guts today; the same guts I hated so much yesterday. You see guys hoping that a pathologically shallow woman would choose the day to see beyond your unkempt hair, creepy sense of humour, zero sense of style, zero bank account balance and those sensational buck teeth. Some guys even develop the gumption to propose on Valentine’s day. Jeez! It’s probably a variation of the cover mentality I mentioned earlier.
Then there are the pretentious girls who measure the value of their lives by how many hearts they get to break or by how many advances they get to turn down. They actually do everything but slap a “ASK ME OUT” neon sign on their foreheads. These girls will tell you they have a val and once you’re out of their sight (sometimes they don’t even extend you this courtesy) they make an entry in their book of turned down bozos. Don’t buy them any biscuits or greeting cards and you may just walk away unscathed. Then there are the hopeless romantic (but secretly dominatrix) girls who expect you to open the door for them and call them my lady all day even though she hasn’t given you back the money you lent her since last month.
I hate red and I hate all the mushy commercials and all the Valentine’s day spirit crap because it reminds me I’m not with anyone right now and I feel so alone and left out. There, I said it. Sob sob.
