All single males and females usually dread today, Valentine’s Day.
And why not? Some idiot made up this day dedicated to all lovers, particularly those with significant others (boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife, etc.). Well phooey! Pa’no naman kaming walang boyfriend, husband, or partner other than the business type?
Of course, when I was in grade school, the nuns tried to expand this Valentine’s Day concept to include love for one’s classmates and family members.
So there we were cutting out red hearts from cartolina, then giving one-half to some other classmate we favored. To this day, it still surprises me that we all didn’t turn out as lesbians. (Not that there’s anything wrong with being one, may I add. Yes, we now have to be all politically correct about this and make such a disclaimer, lest we unintentionally hurt the feelings of our pards. It’s all very confusing, I know.)
As kids desperately wanting for attention, we would also become anxious with this Valentine tradition in my school. What if no one gave me half of her paper heart?! That would’ve been just devastating, wouldn’t it? (“Nobody loves me, everybody hates me, I’m gonna eat some worms.”)
But, oh those nuns…they were miles ahead of us in thinking. They made it so that it would end up fairly for all, and we all had whole hearts by the end of the homeroom hour or art class. If our class number was odd-evened, our homeroom or art teacher would also make a paper heart of her own and join in “the fun”, just so we would have paired hearts.
No wonder I preferred the Christmas season and the Kris Kringle tradition. (By the way, I asked my grandniece, who studies in the same school I graduated from, if she knew who or what Kris Kringle was. She didn’t. Apparently, they just have a practice called “exchange gift”. It’s not called Kris Kringle, or monito/monita—heck, I know where that game title came from—just plain “exchange gift”. Boo.)
Also during the Valentine’s Day season, the nuns encouraged us to give love to our parents and siblings. I doubt if I gave any cards or gifts to my siblings—I was the youngest, and by the time I was born, all three of them had already formed their own bond. To them, I was probably an interloper and another competitor for our parents’ affections.
But I’m pretty sure I gave my mom a trinket or two during Valentine’s Day. I remember a particular one—it was a heart-shaped ceramic pendant—bloody red with an “E” (for her name, Estrellita) scripted in the center, in white, and surrounded by a white fluffy-like ceramic border. It looked like one of those sugar decorations you find on birthday cakes.
She never wore that pendant; it would not go well with the rest of her real jewelry. But she kept it for the longest time in one box in her drawer.
I know this, because I would regularly inspect her stuff when she wasn’t around, nosy kid that I was. (Yes, even then, I already had the makings of a journalist. I’d poke around closed drawers and cabinets just to see their contents. Nowadays, when you invite me to your home, one of the first things I’d probably do is to inspect the medicine cabinet in your bathroom, or the food in your refrigerator. I can’t help myself, sorry. You have been warned.)
Valentine’s Day was not really a big thing in our household, the same with Father’s Day or Mother’s Day. Despite the hammering at school of how important Valentine’s Day was, I don’t recall my parents actually going out to celebrate it, nor us as a family. I would surmise it had to do with the fact that the birthdays of Lola, Mama and mine all fell in February, so Papa certainly had to tighten his belt to ensure that each of us had some modicum of a decent celebration.
Nowadays, Valentine’s Day has become so commercialized—what with malls playing it up so they could drum up more post-Christmas sales—that it sends many of us, singles and coupled alike, in a literal frenzy. The single ones worry they don’t have dates, while the men who have demanding girlfriends undergo one crisis after the other, trying to find the money to buy the roses (currently priced at P1,300 to P2,000 for a dozen, I hear), chocolates and pray to high heavens their credit cards will hold up the expensive dinner they will pay so their girlfriends will continue to love them.
Those of us who are single will probably stay at home, veg out on the couch, and watch the History Channel all day. Or we will be with friends, go to a spa for a much-needed massage, or troop to our favorite hangouts and binge-drink our favorite poisons to deaden the feeling of restlessness, loneliness, or envy at couples on date (take your pick!).
Some single men and ladies will probably even try to cope by ridiculing couples who spend so much on this day, cursing them for the traffic jams that will be caused by all these lovebirds, and make bets how long those roses men give to their significant others will stay alive. Those uncoupled, consciously or not, will try to puff themselves up by saying, “Look at us, we can go out drinking until the next day without someone nagging us ‘What time will you be home?’” Or “Thank God, I don’t have to struggle reading through that complicated menu for that overpriced dinner!”
My unattached 30-ish niece, who has a joke hashtag #letthehugotbegin for Valentine’s Day, recently posted on Instagram a photo of her bag with her favorite stuffed toy Zody peeking from its open end. (Zody, might I add, is well-traveled and has been to many places in the world that even I have yet to reach.) Anyway, my niece’s post went, “Buti pa si Zody, gusto ako laging kasama.” To which I commented, “’Di na bale wala kang Valentine’s Day date, may Gucci bag ka naman!” Yes, retail therapy is a great picker-upper any day that you feel less than, uh, “normal”.
So where was I going with this piece?
- If you’re in love and have a significant other, go ahead and celebrate Valentine’s Day, and try to enjoy it, no matter how financially crippling it may be. If you want that girl of your dreams to be impressed and be your wife someday, you better have something special planned today.
- If you don’t have a boyfriend or husband, then go out, buy a new bag or dress. You know the purchase will give you the same high as being in love, for as long as you continue to look sexy in or with it. ’Pag tumaba ka na at ’di na nagkasya ’yung dress kasi kain ka ng kain dahil wala ka pa ring boyfriend, bumili ng bago. (Repeat as necessary.)
- And for those going out with the barkada to drown their sorrows in drink because they don’t have dates—aminin!—do not drink and drive.
Cheers, single peeps! It’s not the end of the world.