Used to be that February 14th was all about flowers, candy, oversized teddy-bears, and red balloons. It used to be about dinner dates, weekend getaways, and romantic gestures. Nowadays it’s about making fun of couples who show PDA, bashing hopeless romantics who wish they had a date, and ridiculing those in love. Now more than ever many will find every reason in the world to NOT acknowledge the “Hallmark Holiday”.
Because of this, I embrace Valentine’s Day more than ever.
I will take one for the team and be the girl who wakes up next Tuesday and wears red (or at least red lipstick. OK fine, maybe pink). I will be the girl who makes goody-bags filled with Hershey Hugs, condoms, and miniature liquor bottles for the special someone(s) in her life. And I will be the obnoxious, overzealous V-Day equivalent to Reese Witherspoons’s character Tracy Flick in The Election. I am kidding of course. But only a little bit.
Because regardless of how high the divorce rate gets, how discouraging dating may be, or how romantically hopeless I may feel; I will always be the girl who loves to LOVE. And for me, that is what Valentine’s Day is about. Granted superficial opportunists have taken it upon themselves to distort the the underlying message of February 14th, but why let them ruin your perception of love? Just like you shouldn’t let romantic comedies make you delusional with unrealistic expectations about love, you shouldn’t let someone else’s failed marriage dictate your relationships either.
So celebrate LOVE on February 14th, and any other day you wish (no this doesn’t warrant being an asshole the rest of the year). Have dinner with your mom, watch the game with your pops, take your son out for his favorite “brown ice-cream,” talk shit with your girlfriends, play ball with the homies, or finish Mockingjay over a glass of Malbec. Love is love.
If you’re still not a fan, you don’t need to be. If you can’t beat ’em, you don’t have to join them. Just don’t, you know, beat them either. Valentine’s Day may be an overrated holiday, but we shouldn’t let it underrate love.
Poor dude, he was just doing his job.
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