In Defense of Valentine's

I have spent most of my life forlorn, walking with my eyes skyward and my heart in all the romantic places. Such existence leads quite quickly towards unrequited love and the games that women play with men who they know would love them if only so much as one fair chance was given. I too hated Valentine's Day. I hated it when it was popular to like it, rebelling against bringing cards and candy for other children who only feigned to like me the rest of the year. Then, as now with people who choose to hate V-Day, the action was a reaction from my perceived scorns.

Valentine's day is, above all, a holiday where partners can justify the quality of partners they chose over better persons on the poor advice of friends. Girls swoon over their boyfriends who, for the first time all year, thought about taking them out to dinner. Boys tell themselves they're a romantic because they bought a dozen roses and consulted with their buddies on what cheap stunts and scavenger hunts they each did last year.

For those, like me, who have never had a partner to celebrate Valentine's day with, the whole affair screams of pretension and gloating. It feels like the inherited rich laughing at the exploited poor. This perspective is not really about the romance of others. It is the stone hearted disdaining a holiday that celebrates an emotion they are too self-serving to offer.

Stop and think, all that energy is directed at hating celebrations of love. My four High School Valentine's Days were spent working at a CVS Pharmacy with a bunch of sexagenarians whose husbands were probably watching TV. I saw the commercialization at its best, a flood of bodies (men mostly) six deep in line for cards and candy while all my young co-workers had asked off to be taken out by their boyfriends or to take out their girlfriends.

As a progressive, the only part of the holiday that perturbs me is the sexist date structure similar to something from the 1950s: boy picks up girl, boy holds door, boy pulls out chair, boy pays for girl, boy is repaid through the act of parking or heavy petting, boy returns girl, naive parents thank boy for bringing girl home before midnight.

It distills to personal choices. Valentine's Day can be, for single people and disappointed lovers, a day of inimitable anger. The children in elementary schools, though, have the idea right. Valentine's Day is beautiful because it is concerned with love and concern for everyone, not just one person.

Go ahead, hate a day celebrating love, latch on to the fact that a few companies are exploitative, but call a spade a spade; if you really cared about consumerism and greed, you wouldn't be wearing those fancy shoes, or filling your gas tank at any gas station other than Citgo. You're lonely, and chances are you choose to be.

It is rare anyone is forced to be single without options. Stop looking for the perfect fit, learn about love. Love isn't a thing that drops into your lap already perfect or pricks you in the assumed position so you know where to look. Love is a flurry of emotions inundating any person open to being, as the sermon I heard on Sunday highlighted, kind, tenderhearted, and forgiving. Valentine's Day is set aside for those who are not too coward to risk making a reality something as beautiful as a concept of love. Go ahead, drink in protest and only show how calloused your heart is. You chose not to accept someone's love, or you chose not to pursue the reciprocation of someone else's love and past scorn is no excuse.

The truth is, anyone willing to look beyond themselves, put someone else first, I.E. have a Valentine, understands any day set aside celebrating love is a good thing. We should not become those tragic "lovers" groping each other in backseats of cars on Skyline Drive one day a year. We should be loving and respectful partners, friends, and family members who say I love you every day regardless of the month or day. Valentine's Day should be a challenge to every other day of the year, and anyone who isn't wholly self absorbed should be willing to step up to that challenge.

Contact Kevin at: kevin.ressler@emu.edu