I don't usually do requests, but since I got a very nice comment recently from someone who appreciated me trashing Valentine's Day last year (I think it was), I thought I'd try and trash it again today. Unfortunately, I'm not feeling very inspired, as I don't care that much at the moment about the private award ceremonies (or half-private) that take place on this day, in which people congratulate each other for having got lucky… with each other, so I'll start by borrowing my inspiration from elsewhere – from Dorothy Parker, to be precise:
General Review of the Sex Situation
Woman wants monogamy;
Man delights in novelty.
Love is woman's moon and sun;
Man has other forms of fun.
Woman lives but in her lord;
Count to ten, and man is bored.
With this the gist and sum of it,
What earthly good can come of it?
~ Dorothy Parker
I like this poem, but I would question the accuracy of it. "Love is woman's moon and sun"? Maybe. Being 'loved', at least. But what about this? "Woman lives but in her lord". I find this hard to credit. Maybe things have changed since Dorothy's time, but I think both sides get bored pretty quickly these days, and perhaps always did. Also, my general impression, from this distance, is that women are far more interested in 'love' – whatever that is – than they are in men. And a mere man can never live up to 'love'.
Now, I'm afraid, I shall have to borrow more inspiration. Here's a jolly article about Himote SNS, an "internet forum for the habitually unpopular". It's worth reading the article in full, but here's a choice extract:
Almost no race makes as much fuss about Valentine’s Day as the Japanese, for whom the festival is spread out over four weeks.
Today women are supposed to give chocolate to their sweethearts. On March 14 — White Day — men reciprocate with gifts of white chocolate. The only country to go further is South Korea where White Day is followed, on successive months, by Black, Yellow, Silver and Green Days, each of them dedicated to different kinds of romantic gift giving.
Amid such rampant and cynical consumerism it is hardly surprising that an anti-Valentine revolution should have arisen. The himote divide themselves into sub-categories, including mo-dan (unpopular boys), mo-jo (unpopular girls), home security guards(the house-bound unemployed) and mahotsukai — or wizards, based on a himote belief that those who reach the age of 30 as virgins acquire supernatural powers.
There's also this, of course. Er… I was going to hyperlink to Larkin's poem, 'Reasons For Attendance' in the word 'this' in the last sentence, but there doesn't seem to be a single version of it online that has been correctly transcribed (mainly the word 'here' being transcribed incorrectly by idiots as 'there'), and this subliterate sloppiness depresses me.
What else can I add?
No, I can't be bothered.
I like the poem too. I still like Valentine’s Day. To me it’s a special day to let people know that you care about them. I wasn’t going to do a post about it but decided to anyway because I found Chet Baker’s version of My Funny Valentine. I also added two rather silly poems that came to me suddenly yesterday after reading a couple of posts. And if it’s any consolation, I went out and bought myself a chocolate cupcake for this ‘lovely’ day.
I don’t really have any undying enmity towards Valentine’s Day. That would be silly. But, as the article linked to suggests, it, and many other ways in which couples are treated as winners, do tend to marginalise those who are not ‘lucky in love’. That’s fine, too. I mean, I’m kind of against this culture that’s emerging, of not being able to say or do a damned thing for fear it will hurt someone’s feelings, or be offensive to some oversensitive individual (which is something that’s been brought about by political correctness, it seems), but this also means that ‘mo-dan’ and ‘mo-jo’ should (in my view) express themselves without fear of offending anyone.And if it’s any consolation, I went out and bought myself a chocolate cupcake for this ‘lovely’ day. I see. Well, I hope that you enjoyed it to its full extent. I didn’t do anything yesterday, apart from write, read, and do Internet things. I didn’t even go for a walk. Actually, I’m working on two stories at the moment, both of which have strongly ‘romantic’ elements. One is called “The Cutest Girl in Class” (which I’m writing with Justin Isis), and one is called The Lovers. Writing this kind of thing, however, means that I have to stay in on a Saturday, and shut myself up in my room.