V Day

The Conversation -

Wil: Hey. What do you want to do for Valentine’s day?

Me: Oh yeah, that’s coming up, huh? What an awful day for men. The one day where all the pressure is on them.
Wil: I know! So what do you want to do?
Me: That’s a difficult question. I hate going out anywhere on Valentine’s. It’s a nightmare.
Wil: I agree.
Me: How about I make you an Irish dinner and we play video games? Maybe watch a sci-fi movie? I’ll light candles. We’ll have sex. It’ll be romantic. (Yep, that’s my idea of romance. Potatoes, gaming, aliens and sex. And you wonder why I was single for so long!)
Wil: No. I’m supposed to do something for you. Remember? All the pressure is on me.
Me: Then let’s change tradition.
Wil: No. I’ll cook for you.
Me: You can’t cook. You only know how to melt cheese.
Wil: I’ll figure it out. I’ll even make something vegetarian.
Me: (looking at him with squinted eyes) Okay…

Let me explain to you how sweet that conversation was. It seems like a normal two-people-making-plans discussion, right? No no no. Here's the break down.

1.      February 14^th is terrifying for men. Some women expect men to go all out. Some just want flowers and dinner. Some say they don’t care about the holiday but then get pissed if a man does nothing. Some really don’t care about the holiday and then get pissed when a man tries to do something nice. (Women are evil like that.) No matter which category a woman falls into, most of the time she will never tell a man what she expects. She just leaves him to guess at the correct course of action. And god forbid he guesses wrongly. (shivers) So the fact that Wil just came out and asked was a genius move on his part. Here’s what his question really meant: “I don’t want to fuck up this holiday so tell me what to do and I’ll do it.” Brilliant.

2.      Wil really can’t cook. If it requires adding ingredients or mixing things together, he is completely lost. The closest he comes is taking tortilla chips, piling cheddar cheese on them and then melting it all in a microwave. He even has a name for this dish (I forget what he calls it). Either way, that is honestly the extent of his culinary abilities. Which means to offer to cook for anyone is a very big deal for him. VERY BIG. I feel honored.

3.      I have never in my life met anyone who hates vegetables as much as Wil does. Mention broccoli and he scrunches up his nose and gets a nauseous look on his face. Eat spinach in front of him and he’ll look at you like you’ve lost your fucking mind. If it isn’t meat, pasta, bread, rice, beans, potatoes, or processed MSG (is that possible?) then he wants nothing to do with it. Therefore, offering to cook me something healthy… that’s a big step for Wil. Cute, isn’t he?

 

Honestly, though, Valentine's Day is a such strange day. I don’t understand it.  No one even knows how this holiday started and we are still fucking celebrating it? And whichever Valentine saint you prefer to believe we are honoring, the fact is is that all of them were martyred. They died HORRIBLE deaths for being Christian. All of them.

But let’s just pick one anyway. My personal favorite is the Roman Valentine. In this fun filled story Emperor Claudius II decided that single men made better soldiers than those with wives and families, so he outlawed marriage for all the young males. Roman Valentine rebelled against Claudius and continued to perform secret marriages. When Claudius found out, he ordered Valentine to be put to death. How romantic.

Okay, I get it. What better way to honor the death of godly man than by enjoying overpriced dinners, buying completely unnecessary pieces of jewelry, killing flowers, and having lots of premarital sex? Of course. And just to make this day even more awesome, let’s fuck with all the guys and make them prove how much they love us on this cheerful dead saint day with useless gifts and cheesy gestures and cards with some awful crap about forever on them. Why? Because that’s what Valentine would have wanted. And screw the fact that most men do nice things for women all year round, this is the one day they better be on their ‘A’ game because this is the only day where women will act like they actually appreciate the fact that men go out of their way for them and put up with all their womanly bullshit.

Oh, and don’t forget to plaster bright red annoying hearts all over every god damn store and restaurant because that’s not annoying. Stuffed animals, fat babies with arrows, horrible tasting heart shaped candy, boxes of cheap chocolate. That is EXACTLY what Mr. Valentine died for.

Way to go western culture. Way. To. Go.

 

However, I am not ashamed to admit that I still want food and video games and aliens and sex on that day. Why? Because I feel that’s truly how Saint Val would have wanted to be remembered.