As I’ve grown older I’ve become quite the cranky, Valentine’s Day Scrooge. Bah humbug to the cheap elementary-school Valentines cards, the mystery chocolates, the fru-fru pink lace all over the place, and most of all BAH-freaking-HUMBUG to those disgusting heart “candies” that taste like chalk!
Who eats those, honestly? And to you single soul out there who thinks you actually do like those nasty things, then honey I think you need to do some serious soul searching and stop lying to yourself.
“Well gosh, Lisa, do you just hate love?” I hear you ask.
Nope, super don’t hate love. In fact I love love. I’m super duper in love with my one true love and I love him all day every day. We’re soulmates and I love that we are and we’re going to spend our lives together and grow old and die together, and be stinking happy while we do it!
“Then why,” I hear you ask, “Why do you hate Valentine’s Day? What’s wrong with celebrating love?”
I have no problem celebrating love. I have no problem being in love.
But I do have three big issues with the modern Valentine’s Day holiday and what it’s become. Let’s dive right in, shall we? Hold onto your overpriced roses, because this is going to be a bumpy ride!
1.Valentine’s Gifts Are Just the Worst
First off, I’m not a big gift-giver by nature. It’s not my go-to love language and is usually something I find more stressful than loving (both in giving and receiving material gifts). Also note that my winter-gift-giving calendar looks like this:
- November: My Hubby’s Birthday = Gifts
- December: Christmas = Gifts
- January: My Own Birthday = Gifts
So come February I’m kind of “gifted” out. My husband literally just bought me a nice birthday gift three weeks ago…do I really have to do it all over again so soon?
But even if my calendar didn’t line up that way, it wouldn’t change the fact that most traditional Valentine’s gifts are just plain stupid. For example…
What the blazes am I supposed to do with an over-sized teddy bear?
Honestly truly, what the heck am I going to do with that thing? I’m a grown woman and I haven’t played with stuffed animals in decades! So who came up with this “brilliant” plan to give an adult a freaking teddy bear the size of a small human being?!
I’m going to take one look at that bear and go, “Huh, cute.”
Then I’ll take a second look at the price tag and have a small heart attack; you paid what for a stuffed animal?
And then I’m going to take a third look around my house and wonder where on earth am I going to fit this darn thing where I won’t super resent it being in my way for the rest of my life.
(This is why my love language isn’t gift giving, by the way, because I get too hung up on how much money this item cost and then the guilt of having to save and treasure it for the rest of my life.)
Please, just please, quit with the massive bears already!
And if it’s not a giant teddy bear, it’s expensive jewelry (if you thought the cost of a teddy bear stresses me out, throw some fancy jewelry at me and let’s see how I feel then), overpriced roses (I told my husband way back when we were engaged to never pay Valentine’s Day or Mother’s Day prices for flowers; get me flowers for my birthday if you so choose), or weirdly-flavored chocolate that aren’t nearly worth all those calories (let’s just stick with a basic Snickers bar, please).
Overall, Valentine’s gifts just kind of suck.
2.Going Out is a Super Crowded Nightmare.
No, my love language isn’t gift giving; instead I’m absolutely a Quality Time kind of gal. Special outings, game nights, long chats, personal visits—those kinds of things just shoot off fireworks in the love-center of my soul (both romantically from my hubby and friendship-wise from my gal pals).
“But then why Lisa, why on earth do you complain so much about going out for a nice date night on Valentine’s Day? That should be right up your alley, right?”
Except EVERY OTHER PERSON ON THE PLANET is also going out that night.
Special outings, yes, but waiting for an hour for seating at a restaurant? Squeezing through crowds at the movie theater? Cramming shoulder-to-shoulder with fifty strangers just for a tiny cup of expensive, fancy-pants Cold Stone ice cream? Sitting in backed up traffic? Waiting for ages and ages to get into any place at all because every single human is out trying to do the exact same thing?
I don’t think so.
And don’t even think about trying to beat the crowds by going out the weekend before or after Valentine’s Day, because half of the human population already had the same idea and is doing the exact same thing. Basically look at your calendar for the month of February and block out the 7th through the 21st as no-go days for just about anything because every place will be packed!
And that’s just downright annoying.
3.The Expectation that Women have to “Test” Their Significant Other
Okay, we’ve come to it at last. This is actually the biggest, absolutely worst thing I hate about Valentine’s Day: this trope of tricking or testing your significant other.
We’ve all seen it come up on at least one sitcom somewhere: the girl says, “Oh, I don’t want to exchange gifts for Valentine’s Day!”
Then the big day arrives and she surprises her boyfriend/husband a gift, who then stammers frantically, “I, uh, I thought we weren’t exchanging gifts…”
And then the girl gets all dramatic and huffy and the whole thing ends in the guy being in the doghouse and sleeping on the couch or something like that.
Actually, here’s a couple sketches that make fun of this exact trope that I indeed find rather amusing just because they’re making fun of the thing that I hate so much:
Hilarious, sure. Whatever.
Except it’s not! I absolutely hate this trope, but it just keeps popping up! Admittedly you’ll see this idea year-round for all sorts of occasions, but it is most commonly tied to Valentine’s Day.
When my husband and I were first married I told him very directly my feelings about Valentine’s Day (and gift-giving in general). “I don’t want a Valentine’s gift,” I told him. “I’m not tricking you or testing you or trying to give you subtle hints. I’m being very honest here: I don’t want a gift for Valentine’s Day!”
And he believed me, thank goodness. True to my word, we didn’t exchange Valentine’s Day gifts. In fact, we’ve never exchanged Valentine’s Day gifts. We usually at least acknowledge the holiday, tell each other “I love you,” and then stay in together and watch a movie and eat ice cream or something like that, but that’s it (which honestly isn’t that different from most weekend evenings for us).
However, every single time my poor husband has ever told this to anyone, particularly other men, that his wife doesn’t want a Valentine’s Day gift, he always gets the same response: laughter accompanied by some version of, “It’s a trap!”
No, I promise you, it’s not a trap. I mean what I say and I say what I mean. This isn’t a trap.
Attention ladies: you shouldn’t be “trapping” your man, not for Valentine’s Day and not any other day of the year either. It’s petty, dramatic, and it shows a huge lack of confidence in your relationship. Playing this annoying mind game, especially if you’re purposely expecting him to play into it and get you something even when you “asked” him not to in order to “prove” his love, is unfair to him and grossly inappropriate.
Don’t do it. Just don’t.
On the other hand, if you aren’t on good enough terms with your own husband that you’re too afraid to openly say, “Yes, I’d like to exchange Valentine’s gifts,” then you have bigger issues than having to choke down dusty, chalk hearts every February.
Talk about communication problems!
Sweetheart, if you want a giant teddy bear then be honest and just say so! Don’t be coy, don’t beat around the bush, and don’t pretend that it doesn’t matter.
IF IT MATTERS TO YOU, THEN SAY SO!
I promise you’ll have a happier relationship if you just buck up and say what you want. Believe me, he’ll thank you for it.
I’ll share the quite-brilliant advice my mother gave me about relationships: “Men don’t get subtle.”
And you know what? They shouldn’t have to. Ladies, say what you mean and mean what you say!
Here’s the Bottom Line:
If you want to celebrate Valentine’s Day, go ahead. I don’t care. If you want to blow $80 on a big teddy bear, then have at it. If you want to put on a big production for your loved one and go the whole nine yards, then dear sir, be my guest and have a great time!
I don’t care and I’m not trying to stop you.
All I’m saying is this: whatever you want to do with your significant other for Valentine’s Day, do it honestly. Don’t beat around the bush, don’t trap him with these stupid tests, and please don’t sulk and whine if things don’t pan out exactly the way you had in mind.
For the love of all that is holy, just calm down already!
On that note, please enjoy this Studio C sketch that truly sums up all the worst things about this holiday. This really speaks to my soul:
Rant over. Valentine’s Day Scrooge out.
Terrie
Well written Lisa! Made me laugh, made me think. I guess part of what makes the world go round is everyone has their own ways of celebrating holidays. I think Ill thoroughly be enjoying your new blog.
Happy writing ❤️