Valentine's Day was once a simple affair. In elementary school, for instance, your only real concern was sorting your pre-printed valentines to ensure the creepy kid with a crush on you got the noncommittal "You’re neat!" instead of the coveted green-light that is "You make my heart soar!"
Now, for the solo and accompanied alike, Valentine's Day has become an occasion to doubt ourselves and those close to us, in turn rattling many of the carefully crafted self-delusions that allow us to live reasonably pleasant lives the rest of the year.
Valentine's Day also spawns one of the most tragic yet perversely entertaining spectacles in all of human nature, the annual night-before melee of panicked men scouring department stores for low-grade chocolate, tacky lingerie and musical plush toys to bestow upon their paramours.
Gentlemen, it need not descend to this. Though the gift-giving burden is placed perhaps unfairly upon you for this holiday, thoughtfulness and common sense should carry you though.
However, be warned–some women detest flowers, citing their impermanence and what it symbolizes for a relationship. Also, the beauty of flowers exists precisely because it's transitory. The same is true of her beauty, and she may not like to be reminded.
Perhaps the solution for those who find flowers too honest lies in an offer recently publicized by a New York zoo–adopt her a hissing cockroach. For nothing says love quite like vermin. What better symbol of endurance through time, turmoil and post-apocalyptic fallout is there than the noble cockroach?
Of course, you may find the very notion of having to prove your affection with such trinkets deplorable. If you plan to renounce Valentine's Day altogether in protest, your significant other will likely support you and admire your resolve, you dreamy rebel, you. Assuming of course you've announced your intent prior to now.
Indeed, there is a fine line between the romantic and the just plain lame. It's a safe bet any gift ideas found in magazines or online fall under the latter rubric. I can't speak for my entire gender, but in my opinion, any man who presents a $1.99 bag of glow-in-the-dark stars to give his beloved "all the stars in the sky" deserves to be slapped. But then again, perhaps that’s why I'm single.
As you probably know, many women in my position mark this holiday by gathering in full "boys are stupid" regalia to ridicule romantic movies, devour cheap candy and discuss at length how happy they are being unattached and how they don't understand why society can't accept that.
What you may not know is that the most vocal in this respect also tend to be the most insecure and attention-starved. In fact, they'd probably throw themselves at any sober lad with passable hygiene who payed them a compliment. Why not give it a try? Mace only stings for what, half an hour?
Regardless of how this Valentine's Day finds you, if it's getting you down, you'll fare better if you resolve not to make your happiness contingent on another's acceptance of you. Why set yourself up for disappointment? No one will ever love you. Who could?
Holly Noe's column runs each Friday. Send a valentine to [email protected] .