COLUMN: Surviving Valentine's Day
Get ready attractive and socially acceptable people: it’s nearly time to buy your significant other a bouquet of soon-to-be-dead flowers and a box of chalky candy hearts!
Yes, it’s nearly Valentine’s Day. The holiday in the middle of the coldest, deadest month of winter that celebrates warm, gooey feelings of love and lust.
I haven’t had a good Valentine’s Day since fifth grade when some girl left a note in my locker, asking me if I would go out with her. Come to think of it, I’m not sure where we would have “gone,” since neither one of us had our driver’s licenses at age 12, but the gesture was still nice.
The next 12 years have been very lean times for me. Every Valentine’s Day is just a reaffirmation of my shortcomings as a suitable mate, and every Zales commercial makes me realize I don’t even have the funds to bribe a shallow girl with a shiny rock.
Thankfully, I’m not alone at my pity party. I know a lot of you have also been spurned by lovers or neglected by Cupid’s arrow, and I’m happy we can be sad together. While we’re being sad, I have a few ideas of how to get through Feb. 14.
First and foremost, it’s important we completely abstain from Facebook. For the love of Russell Stover, Valentine’s Day needs to be the one day a year when we don’t creep on our exes or that girl you had a crush on in math class from high school. Odds are, you’re going to see your ex with some infuriatingly average-looking person or some meth-addicted townie, and no one needs that.
Along with Facebook, avoid television. This is a pretty tough sacrifice, especially if you’re like me and you like background noise while you’re sobbing uncontrollably into your fifth of Jameson. However, TV is controlled by Satan himself on Valentine’s, and you’re bound to run into a romantic comedy or an eHarmony commercial that will most likely cause you to hurl the whiskey bottle at your television.
The preceding two ideas should be somewhat helpful if, like me, someone has actually told you that you’ll die alone, and you’ve resigned yourself to that fact. However, I want to encourage those of you who still have faith in love to approach Valentine’s Day with a more proactive stance. Be the change you want to see, and all that cliché stuff.
I won’t be mad if you leave the pity party. In fact, I’ll be proud of you if you leave. Get off your ass and go perform some grandiose romantic gesture.
Just don’t do it where I can see it, unless you can duck a flying whiskey bottle.
