Bloody predictable, right? Of course it is. Talking about Valentine's Day on the day itself; that most contrived of all days in the calendar, named after a dubious 'saint' who if you actually look up and read about you'll see he had absolutely nowt whatsoever to do with romantic love at all, but who cares as long as you can get a box of chocs and a single red rose for a tenner and squeeze yourself into an elusive 'Valentine's Special' table in a restaurant whose prices have just gone up by 50% and whose actual charm and character has gone down by the same approximate amount.
Maybe I'm just bitter because I didn't receive a bona fide Valentine's card until I was eighteen (well, I HAD technically received some before then, but I would say it doesn't count if you're just sending the odd one to yourself just so your Dad stops going on about how weird it is that you don't have a boyfriend yet). The one I received on that fateful Valentine's Day in 1996 was sweet and unassuming in a non-stalkery way and included a quirky little poem, yet my heart sank as I realised I knew exactly who it was from, and that I was going to have to 'disappoint' him (something I'm sure he got over in a matter of mere seconds).
Valentine's Day is awful for that though, isn't it? Everybody tells you to "pluck up the courage" and send a card to that person you've always fancied; you get so swept up in all the seductive artificiality of it all that you DO it, completely overlooking the fact that your intended Valentine...well, just may not fancy you all that much. This is one of the reasons why, no matter how many times my poor young neglected heart had some unrequited crush, I never sent anyone a 'proper' Valentine's Card unless a relationship had already been established. Although even then you may be still be treading on dangerous ground. I got another one a couple of years later from a man I'd just started seeing who, on our first date told me people were always telling him he looked like 'Postman Pat', a resemblance I hadn't previously noticed and once I had, I rather shallowly found him less attractive. In the Valentine's card he sent me he'd drawn a(n admittedly very good) picture of 'Postman Pat' surrounded by a heart, and that was the end of that. I'd like to say that now I'm a bit older and wiser I wouldn't have acted in such a horribly shallow way, but I suspect I still would. Rich, coming from someone whose profile picture on a work website looked remarkably like the Honey Monster (damn that short bob), but there you have it. To quote Chandler on 'Friends', "the heart wants what it wants".
Whenever I hear that someone has got engaged or married on Valentine's Day, I'm afraid I'm always thinking deep down, "that's a bit unoriginal". Uncharitable, isn't it? But I do wonder how many times people have proposed, very publicly, on Valentine's Day just so they can make sure they don't get a refusal. I remember watching GMTV once on a Valentine's Day morning where the cameras were joyously following a man who was going to propose to his unsuspecting girlfriend in a rose garden. He did it; she looked absolutely terrified. Everything on her face absolutely screamed "get me out of here!" But she said yes. Who wouldn't, when there's a camera being shoved in your face and a million or so viewers waiting with bated breath; morning toast hovering in their fingers, for you to confirm their conformist, tacky rosy red view of romance?
(Now I know what you're thinking...how the hell did I ever find anyone who wanted to marry me, Valentine's Day or not? And the answer is...I'm just as baffled).
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