*Hugh Grant’s voice*
‘I’m just a boy, standing in front of a girl, asking her to love him.’
And all the ladies say? ‘Awwwww!!’
Ah, l’amour. Human beings just love love, don’t we? It’s the universal leveller of men, the driving force of 90% of everything we do, the excuse for all sorts of acts of idiocy – not the least of which is the equally dreaded and anticipated madness on St. Valentine’s Day (which is also known as ‘it’s-the-thought-that-counts-but-you-had-better-spend-some-serious-money-or-your-ass-is-sleeping-on-the-couch day’).
Now, don’t get me wrong; I have nothing against love. Love is a beautiful thing. I mean, what could be better than two people walking down a boulevard somewhere in continental Europe, hand in hand, autumn leaves drifting slowly down while someone’s A-line skirt blows gently in the wind? Love is a beautiful thing (especially in Hollywood)! It’s just Valentine’s Day that I can’t quite wrap my head around.
Every year, on this day, people suddenly start to run around like headless chickens, all of them trying to find:
1. Some sort of partner/(in-)significant other
2. The guidebook on How Not To Get Caught With Your Sidechick By Your Girlfriend and Other Sidechick
3. Cheap imitation versions of designer goods for their grabby Uni-(insert as appropriate: Lag, Ben, Port etc.) girlfriend
4. The most expensive-looking briefs/vest/socks set under N5000
5. The least painful way to end their lives because they still haven’t gotten over that person who left them two years, eight months, three weeks, four days and thirty-five minutes ago.
So you see, I have nothing against love. But Valentine’s Day? I think it is a big fat commercial joke that White people created because they wanted more chocolate, and what better way to justify buying more slaves for their cocoa plantations than a martyr dying for his ladylove? I bet you didn’t know that was why. That is why. Quote me. I’m sure I will be able to find evidence for my theory soon.
Other reasons for this heinous crime of a day is:
– To make single people feel bad
– To make single people feel bad (in case you didn’t understand the first time.)
– To make single people who got unceremoniously dumped feel even worse
– To make unhappy single people feel good about eating more chocolate ice cream in their pyjamas
– To give Igbo men an excuse to wear head-to-toe red.
I honestly can’t think of a single good reason for this ‘celebration’. Someone, please tell me why we insist, every year, on this ridiculous tradition of suffering endless amounts of pressure to come up with the perfect gift, or pretend not to be bitter, or advertise ourselves so someone will notice us, or punish our partners for not being psychic and getting us that thing we never mentioned wanting? I honestly don’t know.
I’ll admit I love expensive gifts of perfume and jewellery as much as the next girl, and God knows whoever sends me (me alone, might I add) on a shopping trip to, say, Milan, will probably earn himself a special place on my speed-dial list, but why wait until Valentine’s Day to do this? Send me to Milan now!
You don’t have to agree with me right away, but just think about what I’m saying. The first sign that something is wrong with Val’s Day is the fact that it’s in February. The month has only 28 days. Of all the twelve months in the year, February is the truly weird one, ergo, it must have self-esteem issues. So someone decided to help it out by making it the month of ‘love’. Valentine’s Day is scheduled for the middle of the month and suddenly February goes from being the bad kind of special to the good kind. Whoop-de-do.
The second sign is, someone died to create this holiday. Not like Easter – I mean, Jesus came back to life in the Bible. All of the poor Valentine fellows who were martyred for this cause stayed dead. There’s a skull with flowers on it in a basilica in Rome that used to belong to one unfortunate guy, but you people will take any excuse to buy ugly mass-produced cards. Is this what someone was tortured and killed for??
The third problem with this ‘day of love’ is it turns people’s brains to giant puddles of hormone-soaked mush. People find themselves cooing over presents they actually hate, posting pictures to social media to make other people bitter, or – in the case of those annoying blissfully happy couples – making everyone who knows them want to throw a rock at their heads.
Where did we get the impression that February 14th is the day to buy gifts for the person we (maybe possibly probably might) love more than anyone else in the world? I have no idea! Because that’s not what I see – what I see is a weird expensive desperate zombie phenomenon that reinforces cliché ideas of what romantic love ought to be, never mind that half of us have no idea what ‘romantic love’ ought to be, there is no light, and our currency that is doing the electric slide into an abyss.
Here’s what I think we should all do. (No, not Anti-Valentine’s Day. That just screams ‘I think I’m unattractive and no one will love me’. And that’s really pathetic.) My solution is this: ignore the date. Chill out; it’s Saturday! Get a bottle of Coke. One for yourself only. (Also, forget about finding your name if you haven’t already. Ignore the name.) So, yeah; buy a bottle of coke, find a nice comfortable chair, put some ice in a glass, don’t ‘share’ it with anyone – forget that it’s 2015 and the Coca Cola company is now big on this sharing thing. Take it back to 2011 – open happiness.
Why? I’m not sure exactly. But Coke is great. And you could very well be walking down the street after making your neighbourhood mart N120 richer (fat lot of good it’ll do them in this economy, but I digress), and run into the person whose name is on your Coke. Which would be awesome. (Just don’t give them the Coke as a ‘Val’s gift’ thereafter; that would defeat the purpose of this whole rant!)
No comments:
Post a Comment