What I have in common with the RSS
February 15th, 2009 § Leave a Comment
We’re both jobless on Valentine’s Day. Turns out I’m not alone:
[...] there’s increasing grumbling about Valentine’s Day, a vaguely defined occasion that forces people, at arrow-point, to declare their deepest emotions, and maybe even to manufacture some that aren’t there. Some call it FAD, “Forced Affection Day.” True, there are those who bemoan the commercialization of Christmas, or the seemingly contrived nature of Mother’s Day or Administrative Professionals Week. Yet Valentine’s Day is the only American celebration with a resistance movement. It comprises singles who resent the incessant emphasis on romantic love, parents who resent the necessity of procuring 24 Disney princess cards with red lollipops attached, and devoted couples, married and not, who resent the compulsion of it all.
That wonderful article further analyses why this is so:
How did we get here? How did a day devoted to love, affection and chocolate come to inspire loathing and ridicule? Blame the public schools. It’s there that compulsive Valentine exchanging begins, innocently enough at first. In grade school, teachers usually insist that children provide a Valentine for everyone in the class. Alas, boys and girls graduate into a life where, sometimes, theirs is the only desk in the office without a bouquet.
“Valentine’s Day has so much baggage attached to it, this cliché feeling of disappointment,” says Ms. Cagen. She went to a high school in Rhode Island where students routinely sent carnations to other students on Valentine’s Day, “and, if you didn’t get one from a boy, you felt bad.”
Awwww.
