Elizabeth Jenner
13
February 20:02
Things That Get My Goat: Fitt the Third
It could have all been so easy. It was the perfect opportunity for a good ol' Traditional Single Person's Rant about Commercialism and Marketing and It's Not Real Love, It's Just An Overpriced Wilting Rose On A Stick And Anyway, What Does An Expression Of Love Really Mean In Today's Cynical Ugly Divorce-Ridden Sordid Society?I could have written that, and then I could have had comments from other unattached people agreeing, or demurring because they're content with their single status, whilst the coupled up people tactfully ignored my vituperant outpourings as the rantings of one who must be pitied, or alternatively let me know how they'd decided not to do anything that big anyway because they didn't want to get sucked in. And then, of course, there would have been the obligatory anonymous comment from somebody calling himself something enigmatic and lowercase and therefore mysterious telling me that I was just plain bitter, and then a little later on tomorrow evening, when the single drunkards come back from the pub, I would have found a little email in my inbox from 'mitch' or 'andiz' asking me if I have a good body and how I should really 'cyber' with them sometime. You see? It could have all been so easy.
But it's not. And this is why Valentine's Day really pisses me off. Because as much as it makes good blog sense, if nothing else, to play the Cynical And Single – And Loving It (In A Masochistic Kind Of Way) card, I also end up being a tad hypocritical. Yes, a lot of the day may be commercial nonsense, but I have to admit that if I thought that there was anyone who was interested in me at all (or had even, possibly, once, in the far distant past, looked at me and thought well, she's all right, I suppose) then I know full well I'd be ready and willing to be caught up in the tacky red excitement of it all. So Valentine's Day actually annoys me more because although I can't restrain myself from the patented terminally single person's mutter, I can't really get up on my lofty moral high ground and frown disapprovingly at all the millions of pounds spent on cards and flowers and droopy-eyed teddy bears either.
Actually, thinking about it, I can still shake my head at the teddy bears. You know the ones. They look pathetically at you and hold big red hearts and felt flowers and things, in a slightly creepy way. You get the feeling that behind their soppy smiles they're just dying to rip the sodding red things apart and be done with it.
What's that? Single and embittered, me? Never.
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