Comments | kefiraahava: Yes, it's the V-Day rant again

kefiraahava

Yes, it's the V-Day rant again

Feb 12, 2007 21:33

Come on now, y'all should expect it by now.*wry grin*

*points to icon* Thanks to the lovely Tamnonlinear, I have an icon worthy of the rant.

Yes, for those new to this LJ, I I have always hated Valentine's Day for its societal conformist pressures and the screws it puts to everyone's minds. I felt this way when married, I felt and feel this way while ( Read more... )

rants

Comments 12

mevennen February 13 2007, 10:11:34 UTC

I pointed out to Elizabeth Bear that St Valentine was in fact martyred.

She pointed out in return that we celebrated his day with a massacre.

My plans for V-Day are work related: I'll be in Yorkshire giving a talk to a young writers' association tomorrow evening. T and I are going out to dinner on Friday, when all the fuss has died down.

tamnonlinear February 13 2007, 16:48:31 UTC

I pointed out to Elizabeth Bear that St Valentine was in fact martyred.

She pointed out in return that we celebrated his day with a massacre.

Hee! Wonderful.

kefiraahava February 13 2007, 23:07:06 UTC

Okay, I deleted my other comment after reading the news re the Utah shooting, that an off-duty cop having an early Valentine's Day dinner with his wife apparently jumped up from dinner, fired at the gunman, and prevented a lot more people from getting killed.

I am known for my mordant humor and snark, but...no. I can't do that. Sorry, folks.

alpha_strike February 13 2007, 15:02:55 UTC

I thought it was just me.

While I feel that men should be encouraged to give their SO flowers, good chocolates, or any other reminder that we occasionally think of something besides the local sports team, I resent the societal pressure to cough up the toys on a particular day. A good reason to give my wife roses is "because it's raining", not because it's expected of me. While you may resent others flaunting their seventy-five-dollars-a-dozen roses, you'll have the smug satisfaction of knowing that they're an empty gesture. I'd rather skip the BS now, and give her roses four other times in the year because I want to.

Genuine romance is a good thing. The Valentine's Day Forced Labor of Love Gulag isn't.

kefiraahava February 13 2007, 19:30:08 UTC

Oh no, it's not just you at all.

Oh yeah, I resent the flaunting of roses certain females do while I snark to myself about the empty gesture. Some of these females were unwise enough to wail about the relationships in my hearing prior to V-Day, which made me draw certain conclusions as to the emptiness of the gesture, oh yes.

But I also resent the attitude I've heard from certain males in the past of "I have to get her roses or I won't get laid." That is, horrifyingly, a quote I heard one year as I was commuting through Penn Station in NYC and walking by the long line of men waiting to buy the jacked-up-in-price roses before they got on the train home. I heard variations on that theme every year I commuted through Penn Station on V-Day, which was oh, six years' total, something like that?

This bunch of men were so surly and grudging about having to buy roses and having to go home on time to go to dinner and having to take their SOs to dinner that I frankly thought they ought to have the roses inserted, long stems first, in the ( ... )

corielena February 14 2007, 02:24:45 UTC

I agree.

And honestly? while I adore chocolate, an entire box of them is likely to be wasted on me--I won't eat them all before they start getting that ever-so-tasty white film on them. Roses, I don't mind--I can dry the petals and make potpourri.

But I'd like to find a fellow or lady who gives gestures from the heart. Not one who gives them because it's THAT day of the year.

*L* And so that you know, I followed alpha_strike's link here.

kefiraahava February 14 2007, 03:56:11 UTC

Welcome! Pull up a chair, snacks are over there, drinks are in the fridge, the icon is adorable...

You have much more willpower than I about the chocolate.*wry grin* And indeed, the gestures from the heart are what I prefer as well.

corielena February 15 2007, 03:58:12 UTC

*G* Thank you! And thank you for the compliment to the icon as well--I didn't make the base, but I did have fun playing with colors. Bluekit is another of my online names.

Honest expressions of pleasure in another's company are always preferable, I think. When you only give them on "special" days dictated by society, they become rote. They lack meaning.
It's the same with gifts--a quick, but heartfelt, love note--even something as simple as "love you" is a better present than a fancy Hallmark card and two dozen red roses (stripped of the thorns, of course, and overbred into having NO scent of their own!!).

May I add you as a friend? *G* You're welcome to add me as well, if you feel so inclined. You're a very sensible and intelligent person.

kefiraahava February 16 2007, 01:14:32 UTC

"Honest expressions of pleasure in another's company are always preferable, I think. When you only give them on 'special' days dictated by society, they become rote. They lack meaning."

*nods vehemently* I totally agree. I know there are some people (my late father among them--it took him literally years to learn not to do more than stammer and mumble when as an adult, I would tell him I loved him on days that weren't Father's Day) who get honestly tongue-tied and flustered at expressing sentiment other than on socially sanctioned days. So for them, Valentine's Day is a way to express real sentiments because they feel "allowed to" in some way. That, I understand and don't condemn.

But the "I have to get my SO something on this day" done just because it's Valentine's Day and done with resentment...nope, not real meaningful there.

*blushes at compliment* Why, thank you, and please feel free to add me! Though I must warn you, I do go all fangirly over Supernatural, so the discourse around here isn't always intelligent.*grin*

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