Celebrate Good Times. Come On!
Happy V.D., everyone.
Valentine's Day used to strike me as the dorkiest holiday. Not when I was little and I made valentines out of construction paper, doilies and paste. I loved the heart shapes, the color red, the thrill of presenting them to secret crushes or my family.
No, later. When I was single for many years in a row and Valentine's Day seemed like a conspiracy to exacerbate lonely peoples' feelings of loneliness. If you were in a weepy mood, a simple trip to Duane Reade could trigger the tear ducts as displays of chocolates, racks of cards, animated stuffed Valentine animals, etc. all announced: We're here for the lucky ones! But not for you!
Negative emotions seem to have more impact on me than positive ones. So I remember that bitter sense of exclusion more vividly than I gratefully experience its absence, and a reason to celebrate Valentine's Day.
Shouldn't there be another holiday, one that honors those who struggle along alone? The color scheme could be different, but the idea would be the same -- give chocolates, cards and gifts to your favorite single people because they are there, they're decent and good, they just don't happen to have someone to love. They are more plentiful than you imagine, and on this day, they feel very lonely.
posted by La Misma at 12:47 PM
5 Comments:
I think one would have to pick an icon for the new "Alone Day" that would have the same power as the ever-suitable heart however! Perhaps the statue above would suffice.
But, would an alone person want an "alone" statue?
Would they call it an "alonetine"? "Singletine" has a music to its utterance that is too close to "simpleton", but as many of us know, it is often the overly thoughtful and complex who are labeled such unbecoming things as "contentious" or "argumentative". So that doesn't seem to fit.
2:48 PM
I like singletine. Just pronounce it like libertine.
VDay sucks! If people would stop believing every commercial they saw, maybe we could break free of its grasp, and instead of showing our affection with paper, flowers and candy, we could treat each other with more love and respect.
Oop! Gotta go pick up some flowers so I don't get in trouble!
3:00 PM
It's very difficult to not believe in commercials however! For one thing, I myself keep on waiting for "The King" and that retinue of dancers with burger dresses to come to my neighboorhood and have a fast-food fashion war with those waiters who waited upon the teenagers during the prom nights at the local White Castle.
Flowers are always a balm I find when things are a bit rocky. I do however attempt to buy them from reputable establishments and not whisk them away from the freshly pressed turf beneath which the dead rest.
3:06 PM
I like 'singletine' too. For an icon, I think, defiantly, a heart should also be the Singletine's Day icon. Do single people not have hearts? If you prick them, etc.
Anon #2 (or are you the same anon?) I've never seen those commercials but you've created such a haunting image of them I feel I have seen them, and believed their bright promise.
I love flowers. Getting them, more than anything. Giving them is nice too.
3:24 PM
It could be that single people have the largest hearts of all, for the fact that all of the passion and presentiments of a relationship are being contained within them, looking for an object to spring themselves upon. Perhaps if you pricked them, there would be two objects: the heart of the single, and perhaps the heart of the projection that is in their mind.
3:36 PM
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