Tuesday, February 13, 2007

What's Love Gotta Do With It

Welcome to the season of hearts, flowers and everything pink and fluffy.

Bah humbug.

Truth be told, Valentine's has never been easy for me.

When I have somebody, it's the stress of getting a Valentine's day present, and then stressing on dinner reservations, and then wondering if I'm actually gonna be able to survive the rest of the month after splurging.

When I don't, it's one of the rare times in a year that I actually feel lonely.

Anyways, here are some things that I wonder about this whole Valentine's Day thing:

1. Why are GUYS the ones that have to do everything?
Here, ladies. You try planning everything and have the entire retail industry gang up on ya while you're trying to make your man smile, and let's see how YOU like it.

2. However much the gal says "there's no need for flowers", she's not gonna say no to them.
Know how boys have pissing competitions? This might be the one time a year, where the ladies go "mine's bigger than yours. HA!"

3. Now exactly HOW many good ideas do you have?
Think about it. How often do you have to come up with something unique? Birthdays, Christmas, yearly anniversaries, monthly anniversaries, Valentine's, A random pampering out of the blue... Presents, flowers, food places, activities.

Unless he or she's a professional party planner, how long before any normal man, woman or child runs out of good ideas? (David Tuttera is gay btw, and he's got an entire team to back him up. Ask the executive director of HIS show if he ever misses his boyfriend's birthday.

4. Escalating expectations
Let's face it. Men are not only easily satisfied, the majority of us take the BBQ mentality to a relationship. In other words, it's a big ass burn at the start, settling into a slow, consistent grill.

Women, on the other hand, take the forest-fire mentality. Start with a spark, and then it gradually develops over time, bigger and bigger till the entire forest's consumed. Give in to her every whim and pleasure, and chances are, it won't be long before you have to pull a Bruce Almighty, and actually bring the moon down from the sky.

5. Too much of a good thing.
The Chinese have a saying, "Shark's fin every day, and you'll get bored." Let's face it. Humans are a forgetful, ungrateful lot. Never changed from the time of the pharoahs and Isrealites, not gonna change now. Men AND women often don't learn the value of something until it's gone.

Remember and celebrate all the holidays and sooner or later, you're gonna get bored of it. In my words to a friend, it's called "spoiling your own market". Go figure.

-------------------

And yet, in spite of all this, we men, the dumber of the species, would do virtually anything, just to see the one we love, gasp in surprise and smile, if only for an instant. Yeah, we're clueless, silly and often unimaginative.

Our one redeeming quality? That we love you, and I reckon that makes up for a lot of it, eh? So forget the trappings, forget the things that we do or don't, the times we piss each other off, the stupid, dorky presents or the lack thereof, and just focus on that, eh?

Happy Valentine's everyone.

No comments: