I Never Knew Me a Valentine

Ugh…screw Valentine’s Day, am I right? No matter what your relationship status is, that holiday can just suck it. All it does is pressure couples into performing some pre-determined ritual (with possible variables) that someone once decided was “romantic,” and it makes single people feel like unloved human garbage.

As someone who never had someone special for Valentine’s Day for 34 years, I long ago made my tepid peace with the day (yes, my past “on-again, off-again” relationships were always conveniently “off-again” whenever V-Day would roll around). Yeah, it would kind of sting a bit watching other people get flowers, balloons, candy, and jewelry delivered to them by someone who loved them, but I was perfectly capable of buying my own candy and jewelry, cut flowers die too soon, and balloons are really only fun for infants and morons (of which I am neither).

So when the big day was encroaching my first year with Remus and I realized that for the first time I would actually have a valentine in my life for Valentine’s Day, I wasn’t completely sure how to proceed. Did I really want to celebrate what I know for a fact is a ridiculous holiday? Did I even care about a holiday that I never celebrated for 30+ years? It would be as if I was suddenly asked to know how to observe Arbor Day or the summer solstice (uh…plant a tree and sacrifice a goat, I guess?). And if I did want to celebrate V-Day with Remus, was that OK, or did that make me a bad feminist and a traitor to my former bachelor self?

In the end I decided that I did want to do something to mark the ridiculous occasion, because being in love is—in its simplest terms—nice, and therefore worthy of some celebration from time to time, and what better time than a day that the world has specifically bookmarked as the day to celebrate love? I quickly put the kibosh on any of the Valentine’s Day clichés—no flowers, no chocolates, no lavish gifts, no public displays of anything, and absolutely no balloons—but requested to simply spend the day together and go out for a good meal somewhere nicer than the places we usually go to.

So we both took the day off work, made restaurant reservations, and looked forward to lazily sleeping in together. And as far as first Valentine’s Days go, it was pretty much perfect. But I swear to god if I ever see one flower or balloon arrive at my desk, heads will roll.

*Title taken from a commonly misheard lyric from Elton John’s “Crocodile Rock.” I know this is not the correct lyric. I also don’t care.