pantsfarm

In summary, fuck [tag]Valentine’s day[/tag].

When I was a wee child, and really probably even through middle school, Valentine’s day was cool, because, it was basically another free candy day. All the kids would give all the other kids their crappy little cards and accompanying crappy little chocolates.

After a while, this practice sort of died out, and not being a particularly socially adept person in high school, I stopped giving or receiving anything at all when it came time to Valentine’s day. You still had people giving each other cards, candies and now sometimes flowers or other gifts, but it wasn’t quite so universal. Here I figured that’s great, they can all have their fun, I don’t mind.

As time went on, I got a bit more annoyed. Maybe not annoyed, but depressed. Valentine’s would come around, and I’d get frustrated how I never had anybody to share it with, and it would be kind of depressing. So, like many others, I suspect, instead of getting depressed, I just got angry, and raged against this horrible corporate holiday dredged up to drive sales of cards, candy, flowers and other stupid tchotchkes. Don’t even get me started on Sweetest Day.

This perspective changed when a Valentine’s day came around and I wasn’t wallowing alone in a pool of bitterness and spite. Instead, I was annoyed for a whole new set of reasons. I imagine many years of hating on Valentine’s day has left me irrevocably opposed to the unabashed greed for gifts and gift giving that comes with the holiday. Really, my gripes about Valentine’s day didn’t change, I just lost the whole depressed and alone angle.

Basically, as far as I can tell, between me and a few of my peers, it’s pretty well established that it doesn’t matter if they say “Oh honey it’s ok if you don’t get me anything” because they’re lying. They do care, they get upset if you don’t, and you’ll be in trouble if you show up come February 14th without gifts in hand. That’s bulllshit, as far I’m concerned. I want to do my part to disabuse people of this stupid expectation of basically demanding gifts, but at the same time, I don’t want to end up being “that asshole who didn’t give gifts on Valentine’s day” to everybody I know. I mean, what do you do if everybody knows that they’ll be thought an asshole if they don’t do gifts and so forth, but everybody also agrees that gifts are dumb. The expected asshole-judgement scares everybody into non-action, and so everybody goes on suffering stupid group-thinking. Of course, I could just be speaking from a totally incorrect assumption that there are more than a scant few who agree that the whole gifts thing is pretty silly.

It’s not for Valentine’s day in particular, the whole gift giving process, is one that I feel like I don’t really see eye-to-eye on with a lot of people. The notion of giving little trinkets and other more or less useless items strikes me as little more than a waste of time. I can understand that it’s a symbolic gesture or some such crap, but, well, I just don’t really agree with that. When it comes to giving [tag]gifts[/tag], I like to try and think up a gift that demonstrates this thought, in that it’s something that carries extra significance in the act of being given from me to them. Alternatively, I might stick with things that are easily consumed, but still demonstrate some level of effort on my part, such as baking cookies. Of course, this only works when I have time, and so most of the time, I end up being the jerk who doesn’t give anything at all.

I suppose I really should just put in the modicum of effort needed to get a card and some candy or something for gifts for people who I couldn’t think of something nicer. Gift certificate maybe, if I’m willing to spend some money on them.