So it's Valentine's Day. Far from the mundanity that such a sentence may suggest, this is a day with great import for a university student, or so my observations have led be to suggest. Either you have the lovey-dovey couples going out to fully booked, over-priced restaurants in their fancy outfits, replete with large bouquets of flowers and chocolates, or else you have your anti-Valentine's singles, thronging the bars, or heading out for a curry, ironically proving that they view the day with great import in their determined declamations that it is an intrinsically stupid practice. At least their frustration is understandable - on Valentine's it seems you are supposed to be in love, seeking love, or rubbishing the whole notion but (secretly) wallowing in self pity.
This is where I bring in my favourite Valentine's Day anecdotes being one who enjoys playing the martyr. First of all, in school, where me and a group of friends were supposed to go to the movies together on Valentine's, but most of them ended up not showing, meaning that me and another poor chap ended up watching The Bachelor together. Quite memorable as Valentine's Day dates go, though to be fair we didn't quite grasp the import of what we were going to end up watching when we bought our ticket. Therein lies another cause for ranting - the fact that Valentine's inevitably means a flood of the most sweet-toothed romantic comedies in the cinema, more than sufficient to cause diabetes from their trailers alone, forget full length.
Then there is the case of the first year of University. When everyone was busy removing cards, hearts, chocolates, flowers and other romantic bric a brac from their pigeon holes (Oxford parlance for mailboxes), I found a single chocolate from the Christian Union telling me that God loves me. Well, it was sweet consolation in a way (pun fully intended) - at least someone did.
But the reverse is hardly better. I think that any form of anti-Valentine's sentiment leaves one seeming like either a killjoy or secretly envious. First of all the envy bit. The only reason why one would make such a big meal of it all in the first place was of course the fact that you are single but (not so) secretly jealous of everyone else in a wonderfully happy relationship and that the sight of all those couples gives you intermediate feelings of pangs of sadness and wanting to retch. The solution then is to go someplace, with other friends who are similarly single and feeling lonely and drink yourself silly, which of course, you were going to do anyway (just to stop the pain) but in the guise of an anti-Valentine's event which provides the perfect excuse.
Then of course the killjoy bit. For, there can be absolutely no doubt that Valentine's Day makes romantics of us all. This is even in the case of the most unreedemably unromantic of men, who on Valentine's are suddenly egged into action, if only from feeling the need to conform. I have heard complaints from women that Valentine's Day is the only day in which they get flowers from their special somebody. Of course, the cynics will go on about the crass denigration of such a noble sentiment as love, although of course being cynics one wonders why they suddenly describle love as noble or pure and not something such as a mere chemical and hormonal stimulation of the brain evolved from the need to encourage reproduction and the continued survival of the species, but that is really grasping at straws. For if love is such a noble and beautiful sentiment, what what on earth is wrong with celebrating it, particularly if it inspires people into action?
Still, I feel sympathy for those aggreived at all the flowers, the chocolates, the hearts. For somehow, you do get the feeling that it seems odd that we give such great import to one specific day as a celebration of love and romance. For why could we not choose any day of the week to have a special celebration with a partner or companion? Even more tellingly, the very fact that such a date is designated removes half of the romance and the specialness from the occasion. That is why I concur with those who are determined to pay Valentine's Day no great heed - neither going out of my way to fight for a booking at some fancy restaurant, nor declaiming loudly at the stupidity of the whole notion. Overall, the sentiments of Valentine's are really quite lovely and wonderful. It is in this sentiment (and almost wholly going against the grain of my usual character) that I say that love should be celebrated in such a manner universally and always, and not just on Valentine's
