Editor's note
Who needs a casual Valentine?
I have a problem with special dates where you’re supposed to celebrate and be happy for a reason that is alien to you. I mean, why do you have to be tremendously happy on December 31st, if you had other days during your year that were worthier of a merrier party?
It’s the same with Valentine´s Day, a relatively recent invention by retailers who spotted a great opportunity to push yet more stuff on us after the winter sales and before spring’s new collections. And even if recession hits hard, florists are always happy. A recent survey by a leading UK-based online retailer Serenata Flowers, found that British men spend over 50% more on their special loved one on Valentine’s Day than they do on their mums on Mother’s Day. Mature and independent guys, you think? Or maybe exhausted souls tired of listening for weeks to the whisper ‘what are you going to give me on the 14th?’
I know humanity needs special dates to celebrate, reflect and remember. But I don’t think that most people do it anymore. Holidays are basically welcomed because they mean we can sleep in until 10 am or make a short trip to the sunshine. I don’t really mind the flowers or chocolates on Valentine’s Day,
but it would be great if before thinking about the shopping you could look your loved one in the eyes and say “I love you,” and truly mean it.
And I´m not saying that it’s easy. It’s not only because it’s difficult at times to live together, with all the compromises that unions involve. But there’s a more worrying trend. Today’s world is all about ‘me’. Check any advertising in any field: it’s all produced and catered for ‘my experience, my senses, my imagination, my dreams, my body, my palate,’ me, me, me.
Remember those lovely old ads where you were invited to buy and to give to your wife or family? So last millennium! Now it’s all about buying for yourself and spending more on yourself because ‘you’re worth it, you deserve it’. And you probably do in most cases, as you work really hard to have a comfortable life! But there’s a profound contradiction between a constant, outer message where you’re the only one that matters, and then expecting from the same inner you, enough generosity towards others, the environment and even your darling.
That’s perhaps why we live in a time where everything is casual, because the original meaning of things became a casualty long ago. Single independent males and females have casual dinners where their dress code is casual chic, and later engage in casual sex after a drink and the odd casual drug for the
most daring. Mornings are invariably marked by hangover and loneliness. And there’s nothing casual about the latter.
Technology enables us to ‘communicate/engage/reach out’ (all marketing jargon) like never before, and yet we find it hard to commit ourselves to long-term relationships like marriages or partnerships.
Ask your single friends what they think about marriage!..’God, no!’ or ‘I’m waiting for the special one’ are frequent answers. It looks like gay activists are more committed to the millenary institution these days than straight people.
Ideologies might have died, but we still need causes and many people out there are looking for love, even if they don’t verbalise it because it’s allegedly demeaning and corny. Love is a good cause. It might be a battered, clichéd cause, but it’s as good as fighting the hole in the ozone layer or poverty. It’s actually better, because it fills you with the energy to tackle the other two. So, say ‘I love you’ to your other half (whether it’s a spouse or a partner), with flowers or not, on the 14th of February and beyond.