My problem with valentine's day is that it is just too over commercialised. And I've never been in a relationship near it so I've never had the opportunity to actually celebrate it. I changed it up this year. And this year was my best valentine's day ever. Then again I also don't celebrate it. I feel no need to celebrate a holiday whose patron saint was castrated, tortured, and eventually killed for going against the church.(*takes off her history nerd glasses*) I got a good friend of mine and the guy that if we lived closer to each other we'd be in a relationship with each other onto a skype call with me and we all sat and talked and laughed and sang and played different video games together despite the fact I'm over 5k miles from them and they're closer to each other than I am.
I'm also one of those people that feel valentine's day is one of those days that can "excuse" an abuser. Because basically what I feel it says is that "you can treat your partner like shite the rest of the year but this day you have to treat them nicely and show them how much you love them." And it gives victims who are either in denial about the abuse or in a position where they feel they can't do anything about it to be something like "well yeah they hit me yesterday but today they took me out for a nice dinner and got me this and that and this proves that they really love me." Which personally, feels like a dangerous relationship if you're saying that. And a dangerous mindset. I've unfortunately had friends in similar situations. My belief is that if you love someone no matter to what degree - friendship, relationship, extreme like but not quite love, etc - you shouldn't just set aside one day where you tell them/show them/make them feel it. It should be consistent. The smallest gestures can mean the world to me. Heck, the boys talking to me today pulled me out of my usual day to day depression enough that I could clear my head for a few hours and get a few things that were more important straightened out (like my job hunting tomorrow) and that, in itself, meant more to me than if I had been given flowers and taken out to dinner. But then again, my mum kind of raised me with that mindset. So it might just be that I believe that just from how I was raised.
Also a kind of brief history on the story behind the celebration: http://forbidenforest.blogspot.com/2012/02/man-we-made-legend.html
Not the full story mind you but....it'll do. Though that link wasn't included in my response. And that's another blog I follow.
Edit: I posted the above minus the link onto my tumblr and this happened:(also this is from one of my friends so I'm not mad or anything at him. I enjoyed seeing his opinion)
okay dude i’m gonna like tear this apart for a second sorta so clench your teeth and brace your anus
also gonna toss in a courtesy read more cut, this shit got pretty huge longways
i really fucking hate the commercialisation argument for valentine’s. everything is commercialised. valentine’s day is not special in commercialisation. holidays in general aren’t special in commercialisation. every fucking thing you do has an advert telling you that THIS PRODUCT WILL MAKE IT THAT MUCH BETTER
valentine’s day is a weird subject, though. people get offended that they’re being advertised to on a day where you are obligated to pamper your partner or face the consequences. because that same advertising claims it’s about romance
a lot of people, mainly women, say they hate valentine’s day because couples should treat each other with love and respect every day of the year. which, you know, they should. but it’s like, dude, what the fuck does love and respect actually MEAN to you??
ignoring the history, valentine’s day is about appeasing the fuck out of your girlfriend with gifts and/or ostentatious displays of affection. and before we get all offended and gender issues or whatever, let’s consider something for a second.
suppose a woman is trying to find the right thing to do for her boyfriend on valentine’s day. she’s rushing around trying to find the PERFECT THING. a gift. a romantic evening. a bunch of flowers. all of the above. anything, but it has to be good enough or he will be pretty upset with her. she’s in a panic, frantically trying to organise something that he’ll love.
meanwhile he sits around expecting it eagerly. maybe he buys little heart chocolates or something.
we’d all agree that’s a fucked up relationship dynamic, wouldn’t we.
so the “every day of the year” argument smacks terribly to me as saying women should be pampered ALL THE TIME. which is silly. because honestly most women would kind of hate that, all that grovelling would be completely repulsive.
but nobody knows what they want, do they. single men bemoan the everhating dick out of their lack of relationship on valentine’s day. why? who fucking knows. just because.
i do pretty much agree entirely with that second part, though, it really does sort of enable the third step in the cycle of abuse. the fucking headgame part where oh look he’s getting better for me i won’t leave him after all.
but i mean, really, thinking about it, just about every holiday can do that, this one is just the most egregious.
honestly, i can’t really say i hate valentine’s day. i mean, i think it’s pretty dumb, but it’s not like i’m entirely against it.
i know women who are in the fucked up dynamic mentioned above. i know women who have neverbeen pampered on valentine’s day, their boyfriends figured they weren’t worth it. that’s a fuckingtravesty.
i dunno, i figure even with all the warping of the original idea and weird history or whatever, it can’t be so bad to have ONE DAY set aside to do something ridiculous. just because you did something for valentine’s doesn’t mean you are now unable to make any grand gestures for the rest of the fucking year.
i mean i probably wouldn’t do anything unless it was laced to shit and back with hipster irony but i highly encourage people who are not weird asexual jackasses to go to town
…
yeah okay i guess i didn’t really tear into shit here
i just sort of used your post as a springboard for my opinions
i’m sorry i just have so many and i forgot to drain my blowhard gland this morning
and my response:
I'm going to quote something you said and elaborate a little further on it since it was almost midnight when I posted this initially and I was about to go to bed..Actually I'm going to do that with a few things you've pointed out and I thank you for it. But I'm not putting in a courtesy read more cut.
a lot of people, mainly women, say they hate valentine’s day because couples should treat each other with love and respect every day of the year. which, you know, they should. but it’s like, dude, what the fuck does love and respect actually MEAN to you??
a lot of the people, mainly women, also don't know what love and respect mean to them. Hell some of them thing its all about material shite. Me personally? Its little gestures day by day that show love and respect. I mean yes, material shite CAN help to show love, but respect can't be shown through materialistic means. Respect is more how you treat and view your partner/others. When I say little gestures day by day for the love aspect, I'll give you my own personal examples. One of my exs, Daniel, he and I didn't date long. We're still best friends. He's always there for me when I need it(presuming he's not at work because that is a reasonable reason for not being there for someone)and I am there for him. When we were dating, I'd get stuff like "have a good day sweetie" type of texts from him(we also worked for two different parts of the same company so he knew the shite I went through at work). At the time I was going through a period of not having a car so getting to and from work some days was increasingly difficult due to our transportation system sucking horribly. He lives a few streets away from me and offered to drive me to and from work, no matter how different our schedules were. Hell, he'd come down and pick me up from late shifts on days he didn't work just so my mum didn't have to wake up and come get me. He'd come visit me when he was off and I was still working just to say hi. Now, that's not exclusive to being in a relationship to do shite like that. That can also just be friendship. Cause if I needed it he would do it even now. And the picking me up or giving me rides thing, he never asks anything in return. Not even gas money(though I do give him gas money if he is wasting his gas to come rescue me or go somewhere with/for me that's out of his way.)
i really fucking hate the commercialisation argument for valentine’s. everything is commercialised. valentine’s day is not special in commercialisation. holidays in general aren’t special in commercialisation. every fucking thing you do has an advert telling you that THIS PRODUCT WILL MAKE IT THAT MUCH BETTER
valentine’s day is a weird subject, though. people get offended that they’re being advertised to on a day where you are obligated to pamper your partner or face the consequences. because that same advertising claims it’s about romance
I hate the commercialism with ALL the holidays. Valentine's day isn't special to me in this regard. I don't celebrate any holiday EXCEPT Halloween. And the only reason I really celebrate that is because I get to dress up and scare the shite out of people. And like last year, get paid for it. Actually that's a lie. I do celebrate some of the other holidays, but I celebrate them privately and more in their original form not the bastardised catholic/christian way of celebrating. And I send out holiday cards every year(literally they say happy holidays and have a great new year or something along those lines. I have too many friends of too many different religions to keep track of them all so in respect of their beliefs its just holidays and they're all fine with that).
ignoring the history, valentine’s day is about appeasing the fuck out of your girlfriend with gifts and/or ostentatious displays of affection. and before we get all offended and gender issues or whatever, let’s consider something for a second.
suppose a woman is trying to find the right thing to do for her boyfriend on valentine’s day. she’s rushing around trying to find the PERFECT THING. a gift. a romantic evening. a bunch of flowers. all of the above. anything, but it has to be good enough or he will be pretty upset with her. she’s in a panic, frantically trying to organise something that he’ll love.
meanwhile he sits around expecting it eagerly. maybe he buys little heart chocolates or something.
we’d all agree that’s a fucked up relationship dynamic, wouldn’t we.
so the “every day of the year” argument smacks terribly to me as saying women should be pampered ALL THE TIME. which is silly. because honestly most women would kind of hate that, all that grovelling would be completely repulsive.
See I don't believe in having to go through all that shite for one partner. If both partners agree that they want to do something special then they should both be involved in it. UNLESS one partner wants to do it as something special for the other partner. I leave out gender because I think gender is inconsequential. What it winds down to no matter what your gender is one person in the relationship is doing everything for the other. And expected to one day a year because of this "holiday". I don't believe that a partner should be pampered all the time. Every once in a while both partners should be pampered, yes. But it shouldn't be just on one partner to do said pampering. It should fall on both partners.
i do pretty much agree entirely with that second part, though, it really does sort of enable the third step in the cycle of abuse. the fucking headgame part where oh look he’s getting better for me i won’t leave him after all.
but i mean, really, thinking about it, just about every holiday can do that, this one is just the most egregious.
Yes every holiday can but Valentine's day in particular places more of an emphasis on it. Which was kind of what I was getting at with that.
i dunno, i figure even with all the warping of the original idea and weird history or whatever, it can’t be so bad to have ONE DAY set aside to do something ridiculous. just because you did something for valentine’s doesn’t mean you are now unable to make any grand gestures for the rest of the fucking year.
It's not that its bad for one day to be set aside for that it is that people feel so pressured to do it on a specific day. Personally for me if I were ever in a relationship on valentine's day I'd want to stay home, game, watch a film, and have a home cooked meal. But that's just me. My tastes run more to the simpler things in life.
As I initially stated, having my two friends yesterday on skype call and gaming with them for a good portion of the day meant more to me than I could really ever say. It's a small gesture yes. But, to me, It was better than a lot of the big gestures that some of my friends got.
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