In fact, there is very little to be said about St. Valentine's day. To me, it means nothing, it is an arbitrary day, and I don't celebrate it not because I hate love or because I am single and bitter. I simply think that true love, for our partner, friends and family, happens every day and it happens in the difficult times. Getting a card and a muffin is easy. True love is not.
I am sure some of you know this already but this year I became aware of ASDA's offer of a 7p Valentine's Day card. It screams some comment about our society, or at least the British society and I'm not even sure what that comment is. Is this an example of the decline of traditional values in exchange for savage, wild, untamed capitalism, where Tesco and ASDA compete for the most popular value-card? Is it simply helping out those who cannot afford the more luxury cards? Is it a remark that everyone should celebrate, and you may be more tempted if it was that cheap to buy a card? Is it simply a smart marketing trick to get people talking about the company and go to see that so-talked-about card for themselves, and then perhaps be lured into buying some bread and some cheese from the shop anyway? Perhaps I am over-thinking it but, in any case, this is what I am talking about.
What I don't like about it is not the price, I am not a snob and I'd buy the card, were I someone who gets V-day cards. I can appreciate that there really are people who want to make their partner happy, who want to celebrate their relationship and their love but cannot afford to splurge and buy expensive gifts. I am one who very much believes in gestures, not money. If you have a good intention, it will come through, even for only 7p. But why is it that the price element, "Be smart" is so obvious? Or maybe I am thick- maybe what they meant was "The only way to be smart is to be my Valentine". Possibly. Talk about double meaning and marketing/advertisement strategies....
I believe that romance is, by definition, intimate. Of course, I hear you say. No, what I mean is that a gesture that is made by the vast majority of men during the same day of the year, for example getting chocolates, cannot be romantic. Because romance, to me, must be unique. I thought it was romantic to use the beer bottle cap, which I had kept as memorabilia from the first time I met a former partner, and make it into a necklace. Romance is born from your relationship with your partner, it comes with the in-jokes you make, the places that you've visited together, sometimes even the fights that you've had. It comes from knowing each other, the best and the worst, and from the decision that you've both made to stay together despite seeing the other person in the morning, messy, or sometimes sick. Thus, counter-intuitively, romance comes from sometimes the grossest things. A former partner and I giggled a lot when one of us farted and had a running joke about it. Stick their head under the covers and yell "Embrace it!!!!" That is romance. Because it is personal and because it is spontaneous, so it is genuine.
I believe that romance is, by definition, intimate. Of course, I hear you say. No, what I mean is that a gesture that is made by the vast majority of men during the same day of the year, for example getting chocolates, cannot be romantic. Because romance, to me, must be unique. I thought it was romantic to use the beer bottle cap, which I had kept as memorabilia from the first time I met a former partner, and make it into a necklace. Romance is born from your relationship with your partner, it comes with the in-jokes you make, the places that you've visited together, sometimes even the fights that you've had. It comes from knowing each other, the best and the worst, and from the decision that you've both made to stay together despite seeing the other person in the morning, messy, or sometimes sick. Thus, counter-intuitively, romance comes from sometimes the grossest things. A former partner and I giggled a lot when one of us farted and had a running joke about it. Stick their head under the covers and yell "Embrace it!!!!" That is romance. Because it is personal and because it is spontaneous, so it is genuine.
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| "There is always hope", Banksy, London |
