Adult in Training

I hate Valentine’s Day.  And I’m not just saying it to be a bitter single girl.  If possible, I hated it more when I was a – terrible – girlfriend.  It’s a stupid holiday.  It’s good when you’re younger, and you get valentines from everyone in the class – because the other kids’ moms make then give one to everyone.  And you get lots of candy and chocolates from your parents.  And a mini-party at school.  Who wouldn’t enjoy that?

But when you are 22, and you are a professional third wheel, it’s a lame holiday.  And even the people I know who are in relationships, some of them don’t like it.  And it sucks that Hallmark has foisted this holiday on  the masses, and anyone that doesn’t like it is seen as cynical or bitter or unromantic.

The only Valentine’s Day that I spent with a boyfriend was a total bust.  It had all this pressure around it, and I had no idea what was expected of me.  And to top it all off I spent the morning in the Concord ER, trying to get someone to look at a mysterious (though non-STD related) rash that I had developed over a month ago.  And then I spent the remainder of the day doped up on Industrial-Strength Benadryl.  So after I nearly fell asleep in the car on the way to the restaurant, in my food at the restaurant and on the way home from the restaurant, I passed out in bed while my boyfriend and I were (trying) to watch “Ray”.  So, awesome.

I just don’t get it.  People complain all the time that Christmas has become over-commercialized.  And no one says they’re cynical.  In fact, lots of people agree with them.  Sometimes I do.  But as a society, we eat up Valentine’s Day - which is, as far as I can tell,  a holiday based very, VERY, loosely in Catholicism (since, technically it’s St. Valentine’s Day) and over-hyped by Hallmark, Hersey and anyone who owns a jewellery store.

So call me a cynic if you want to.  But I really hate February 14th.  I would skip it every year if I could.  I wish I was like Paris Hilton or something, and had the popular-culture power to just invent a day for single people or something.  A way to celebrate being single, and being fine with being single.  Where all the single people, and especially all the people trapped in “The Friend Zone” or stuck as the third wheel on someone else’s relationship (tip: always claim that you are the big wheel in the front) could be appreciated.  Or even, dare I say, envied?  Once I get famous, I think that will be my first order of business.