freckles_and_doubt | bah, humbug

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downwithromance

bah, humbug

Ah, yes. LJ's toolbar is all over pink and hearts, and the price of roses has gone into orbit around what used to be Pluto. Mental torment! I can't work out if I loathe the merry commercial festival of Wellington's Day more or less than I loathe the merry commercial festival of Christmas.

Fortunately, help is at hand for the terminally romance-challenged. Anti-Valentines! Since her site allows you to send them, I'm hoping it falls under Fair Valentine's Use to blog a select few as a valentine to you witterers. They include useful sentiments such as

and

.

I like the site particularly because (a) it's rude, and (b) it explicitly objects both to the commercialisation of romance, and to the ingrained cultural assumption which constructs coupledom as the norm and singletude as some kind of failure. To which I say Tchah!, and also:

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Heh. Love it.

Personally, I don't find there to be much point in being single AND anti-Valentine's Day. We're not the target market for the schmaltz, and until couples start giving up on the holiday it will persist.

I'll confess I rather like Valentines' Day. Secular appeal, no matter how shallow, wins out over bullshiit like Christmas and Easter any day of the Wytchfynder week.

By that logic, I'm not allowed to be anti-homophobe because I'm straight.

Further, I disagree: I do think that part of the Valentine's Day hype is, at least in subtext, directed at singles: the hype implies that if you're not part of a couple you should want to be. Darn it, the Anti-Valentine site says it better than I can this morning after two weeks of curriculum advice and with the builders thumping next door. Go read it :>.

Also, she says, getting into the swing of this disagreement (possibly suicidally, given that this is wytchfynder), the target market thingy applies equally to Christmas, at least to some extent: I am an atheist living in South Africa. None of the Baby Jesus/holly/snow bit is actually directed at me.

Yes/no?

If I had taken more philosophy courses, I'm sure I'd have a name for the turn you take in the first 2 lines :-) It seems to me to be a totally dissimilar kind of phenomenon to what I am describing. How does it seem similar to you?

As to the subtext issue - I find it an engaging theory, if a little conspiratorial. Certainly, I'm sure that (for instance) dating services use Valentines' Day to market to singles. But Hallmark et al pitch their fluffy, low-grade extortion at insecure couples, not at singles. Likewise restaurants, travel agents, etc. As in, I suppose, the homophobia scenario above (I'm still trying to find a way to chew it into a form I can understand), single people can be repulsed by what VDay marketers seem to be doing to their coupled friends, but I don't buy that they can feel persecuted by it, or personally targeted.

Now, I agree that many people/groups do pathologize singleness in this world, but it's not Valentine's day's fault - it's popular media from the Song of Songs to Jane Austen to Hollywood.

And, further suggesting that there's some part of your argument I'm missing: what's your problem with Xmas? The holiday does irritate me when it closes shops, but then I like the post-Xmas sales. And the fact that greedy, vain corporate shills have bent the holiday's arms behind its back, to the point where nobody really gets dragged to church for it anymore, also suits me fine. Greed is at least something I recognize, as opposed to the alien sensations of piety and worship.

VD is directed at singles as much as at couples. There's the "I love my wifey so much I'll buy her these very expensive roses" thing and there's the "I'll give that cute guy a Valentine's card and not tell him it's from me, but really let him know it's from me, and maybe he'll go out with me" thing. Don't you remember school? (Best not to, really) "How many VD cards did you get?!" There's the express-your-love-to-your-partner side and the let-someone-know-you-want-to-be-with-him side.

Er ... wasn't it you who said you weren't fond of the religious points in the calendar, like Christmas? Not extemp? So ... you dislike the religious aspect, but enjoy the greed and the sales, and enjoy how the latter is overtaking the former?
* pause for thought *
Ok, I think I can get that.

VD is directed at singles as much as couples? This rather cries out for some empirics, I feel. All - and I mean all - the ads I see, from romantic weekend getaways to places which allow you to have your pubic hair waxed into the shape of a heart, are aimed at people with an existing "loved one."

:D goodness me, what an alarming idea.
Yes, you're right, all the romantic stuff like holidays and meals and stuff. I'm just hazily remembering the whole school thing of people giving one another Valentine's cards as a way of being noticed, people *not* in couples, but wanting to be. Perhaps it's just a teenage thing, and doesn't extend beyond school. I certainly don't recall that side of things affecting me as a single adult.

And, um, sorry about the italics, I suppose I must have tried to italicise the "you" and didn't end it properly. Silly me.

Your first comment said "Personally, I don't find there to be much point in being single AND anti-Valentine's Day". I read that to mean that I shouldn't get annoyed at something in which I wasn't directly involved. My homophobia example was meant to suggest that an ideological objection to something in the abstract, even if one isn't directly involved, is still perfectly valid. It was rather an over-compressed thought, sorry if it was confusing.

It was also a slightly tangential argument, anyway, because in fact I'm arguing that I am involved, even if it's not an overt involvement; I think w-n's examples support my point rather well. Valentine's Day targets singles by implication, as a logical consequence of its glorification of romance as the only legitimate happiness - if you're not in a relationship, you ought to want to be. I agree that it's not the main focus of the marketing, but I still think it's there, and the anti-valentine site suggests I'm not the only one who feels faintly persecuted by it. It also seems a bit odd to try to exempt VD from the blame for patronising single people: it may be a tendency prevalent in Western culture, but VD, even if it doesn't originate the tendency, certainly leaps the hell on the bandwagon.

Christmas irritates me because, even more than is the case with VD, you can't opt out. If the religion doesn't get you, the consumerism will. There is no escaping the hype.

Nah. If there were a holiday which glorified brain-eating, we really wouldn't be hearing non-brain-eaters complain about it the way some singles do about Valentines' Day. IMO, our touchiness around the topic of luuuurv - as if VD would be so much easier to deal with if it were some genuine celebration of the phenomenon - is to blame. VD and Hallmark are simply scapegoats because we want to blame someone for feeling lonely.

Also, wait: you read a sentence starting with "personally" as a directive of some sort? Lollerskates! Clearly I need to work on my conciliatory debate tone.

Yes, probably :>. I didn't read it as a directive, but I did read it as a value judgement - i.e. you find the logic illegitimate. This narks the small, shrivelled bit of my soul which still pretends to academic rigour, causing me to leap madly back into a fray out of which I should probably be wimping for the good of my mental health.

I also don't think it's fair to suggest I'm whinging about VD because I'm feeling lonely. I dislike it just as much when I'm actually in a relationship, if I can peer that far back into the mists of time. (Although I do cherish the memory of

strawberryfrog giving me a switchblade for a Valentine's gift, a gesture I found nicely subversive).

Also, you are rendering down the fat of this discussion with your usual absolutism. No-one ever said that singles are targeted equally with couples by the VD hype. Most of it is indeed aimed at couples, but there's a subtext. A subtext is surely a marginal reading by definition?

Oops. Actually, re-reading, w-n did say that singles are targeted equally. I fear I disagree ;>. Subtext, subtext, subtext.

*goes off, chanting quietly to self*

meh
By "as much as" I meant (clearly in defiance of the words themselves) "as well as" or something. I didn't actually mean "equally". Less Subtext, subtext, subtext and more semantics, semantics, semantics.

*shuffles off, embarrassed*

So, is this the right place to say what fun I had last night?

No?

OK, then.

I'm listening intently, especially if cards/dinners/themed adult materials were invovled! Also, PIXTHXBYE.

An anti-Valentine assents to the validity of Valentine's Day.
And of course, if coupledom doesn't interest you, you are free to ignore it.

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bah, humbug

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Valentine