Valentine's day - yes, I am interested.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I want a card* and maybe a small gift (financial value utterly unimportant) but I do not want to have to TELL you I do as then there would be no point. You, my BF, would be more than happy to buy or do anything I wanted if I just ASKED but will most certainly not remember or care if I don’t, and hints will not register unless they more or less equate to telling, and then we’re back to square one.

Classic one female - male syndrome, I think. Though if you have the gender roles reversed or are in gay relationship facing same, do share.

My theory is that I’m kind of a late bloomer who was not popular at school and would always get that Charlie Brown feeling getting no cards and/or was dreading that any cards would be cruel jokes so now I feel like it’s finally my moment. My BF, however, has always been popular with the opposite sex and therefore doesn’t get why this admittedly somewhat tacky and commercialised fest could mean anything to anyone in their right mind. But it does, and I do wish he’d remember for once.

*I’m in the board’s Valentine’s exchange, so I do have it covered.

2

I expect no cards except those from the SDMB exchange. Heavens, I don’t worry about it at all.

3

Have you told your boyfriend this?

Valentines day means nothing to me. It’s as you said, it’s a somewhat tacky and commercialised fest, and I feel it’s marketed now just to get us to spend money in some farcical display of affection. However, it means something to you, so your BF should take that into consideration.

4

Don’t feel shame for liking Valentine’s Day! After all they made it just for you.

Yes, it is a created ‘special’ day, it is crass and commercialized but so is Christmas and yet we all find a way to enjoy that.

Never lose sight of the fact that it was created to compensate for what oafs men can be. Hard facts indicate that romantic types are thin on the ground. Spontaneous acts of a romantic nature, large gesture or small, practically unheard of in many parts of the land. Not that these wonderful gentlemen don’t possess other charms and virtues that make them otherwise attractive to their mates. Women do, in fact, do a lot of nurturing and grunt work, around the house and the day to day of relationships and households. It is often unrewarded and unacknowledged effort, but given truly selflessly.

For these very reasons was born an actual designated day. For a gesture, of love, affection, recognition. Large or small is not really the issue. It isn’t going to hurt your relationship to make her feel like your special ‘one’, one day out of 365. Hell, they even codified the gifting, to some extent; flowers, candy, dinner, a card. Could lead to kissing and squeezing, how is that a bad thing?

So I encourage men and women to embrace Valentine’s Day, yes it’s contrived, but there is a reason for that, sometimes the oaf’s need a little nudge to make an effort, no matter how small, to show a little warmth for the one they are, well, warm for.

I hope you have a wonderful Valentine’s Day!

(I’ll be making my Valentine a lovely breakfast in bed, including card and newspaper. He’ll be making me a lovely dinner. See? That wasn’t so hard now, was it?)

5

I can see where **elbows **is coming from, but we both feel that making a special effort on Valentine’s Day is far and away too contrived. The older we get, the more we make a special effort in our day to day lives.

We call Valentine’s Day “Half-Price-Chocolate Day Eve” around our house…

6

I understand just how you feel. We went through the same thing for years. I’ve pretty much given up on any type of hints as he just doesn’t get it. Now I have learned to come straight out and say 'I’ve signed us up for a casino trip on the 13th. On the 14th it’s Valentine’s day, so what do you have in mind? He gets that deer in the headlights look, but now that things are out in the open we don’t have any misunderstandings. We’re facing some expensive medical bills so dinner out or anything pricy is not an option. However contrived it is, the acknowledgement that I’m his sweetie is always something I appreciate.

7

I’ve been to lots of anti-V-day parties and celebrated Dies Irae on the 15th with discount chocolate. And yet, this year I’m looking forward to V-day. No doubt should things return to the status quo for next year, so will I. But dammit, my femme boy self likes to be wooed.

8

I love Valentine’s Day - it’s better than all the others rolled into one. I’ve already given away two flashing hearts, and two squeezable key-ring hearts which kiss you. I’m going back for more, including a heartshaped box of sweets which bellows like an elephant - not sure who that’s for yet! We shall see. Bring on the tack! I love it.

I gave one of the squeezing hearts to a friend who was overworking, she says all her staff want to get paid early so they can get the gifts being demanded of them by their girlfriends. Oh dear, that’s not the spirit. In that way it’s gone over the top like other festivals, but the thing about Valentines is it’s just all about love - or would be if people weren’t so cloying.

It all seems to have got a bit lost in the wash, but growing up it was all about anonymous cards and gifts, where you really didn’t know who was sending them. The Secret Admirer. Not so much already established couples.

“In the spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.”
Alfred Lord Tennyson

9

I always give a card signed by myself & both sons along with some chocolate.

I always get ‘…but I didn’t get you anything’.

Such is life.

10

For all those men out there complaining it’s just a crass commercialized fake holiday to part them from some money for chocolates, cards, or jewelry, or to make them feel resentful and put out -

how about on The Big Superbowl Sunday the SO in charge of shopping for pizza, wings, and beer gives them a grilled cheese sandwich and a diet Coke? After all, it’s a made up holiday, why should they feel they have to buy into gluttony and drunken-ness? It’s a tacky, commercialized farce, and the Bowl Watcher certainly doesn’t need to buy all that fattening stuff and pound down a six pack!

11

Don’t expect someone else to read your mind, or don’t be hurt when it turns out he can’t.

I hope Valentine’s Day is a joy for you, and the day after, and the days after that. I just don’t like the idea that guys have to know your secret desires and repeatedly prove ourselves by tending to them or else we’re oafs.

12

Duly noted.
You’d prefer zero maintenance.
Hope it keeps you warm at night. Bully for you.

Keep your rationalizations to yourself.

It’s freaking 14th February, hardly a secret.

13

By the way, I make no secret of this, nor do I expect my fellows to read my mind.

14

How hard is it for a guy to NOT notice it’s Valentine’s Day? How hard is it for a guy to NOT notice and think, ‘Valentine’s Day is Sunday, I think I’ll pick up a card and a chocolate heart for my sweetie when I stop at the store to pick up a six-pack and a sub sandwich’. There’s no mind reading involved! It’s thoughtfulness! Women are touched by a symbolic gesture of romance. What’s the big deal? All the grumbling and digging-in-of-heels resistance smacks to me of hostility and baby-ish you-can’t-make-me-do-it self contrariness.

Of course, if you have a high-maintenance bitch who expects, no, demands a huge bouquet with balloons and teddy bear be delivered to her office desk, an expensive piece of jewelry, and/or dinner out at the most expensive restaurant in town - well, you are in your own private hell, good luck there. You should by now be able to hear the tune and you will dance, or else. Everyone else would like at least a damn card.

15

There should not be any “expectation” that someone caters your superbowl party. Unless they want to of their own accord, or the person who wants the catering asked.

16

My husband is a chef, so he’s always working on Valentine’s Day. We never get to celebrate it on Valentine’s Day and it’s become kind of a non-holiday. But we do buy each other a card and write each other a love letter (I love getting love-letters!) and we take an evening to celebrate our love for each other. It’s nice to be take time to celebrate it.

But I don’t ask for the flowers, the chocolate, all that. We make dinner together at home, cuddle up with a movie or a favorite TV show (last night Duff took on Chef Symon on Iron Chef!), and, of course get making with the loving.

And, of course, since it was our first Valentine’s Day as husband and wife, we had to make sure we spent that time together. (It was last night for us.) We liked it.

17

No, I’d just prefer someone who would tell me what she was thinking and not expect me to guess.

18

I think it’s necessary to mention the corresponding male holiday. :wink:

You insist on celebrating that one also, right?

19

My husband got essentially bullied into buying me a necklace one Valentine’s Day. I don’t like the holiday much, and we’d been together many years at the time, so he should have known better. But some of his coworkers (mostly female, some male too) harangued him. I was away on a business trip, returning the evening of the 14th, and they harassed him about how I was just saying that and women want pretty stuff and blah blah blah. So he showed up at the airport to pick me up with a rose (pretty enough, dies fast, way over priced on V-Day, but ok), and… a necklace. I was really confused. Jewelry isn’t my thing at all. It’s very pretty, and the stone matches that of a “promise ring” he gave me many years prior, so I do like it. I just wouldn’t have sought it out for myself, and I’m afraid I don’t wear it often. I try to remember on nice occasions.

He explained to me later how he got tag-teamed by his coworkers and guilted into it. I told him I love him, and he should tell them in the future that he knows my heart, and that they can fuck off with their ideas about what I “really” want. :smiley:

Our V-Day is usually me picking up Chinese food and a tiny little dessert at a couple shops in town, and us sitting around eating, playing video games together or watching a movie.

My best V-Day present ever was him picking up two light guns and a video game using them for our PlayStation/PlayStation 2 (whichever it was at the time). We had great fun with that. :smiley:

But anyway, freaking communicate about what you want. Even if it’s just a card. If you say nothing, your partner probably thinks it’s A-OK.

20

This exactly the way my wife and I celebrate both Valentine’s and our anniversary. Though our usual dessert is a shared pint of ice cream. Stress free time together with the one you love, isn’t that what those days are supposed to be about anyways?