My Anti-Valentine

I had just got my Valentine's Day rant perfectly planned out, when Charlie Brooker went and wrote this, which, whilst brilliant, has made me feel hopelessly inadequate in the area of vitriolic invective. So, I had to rethink, and this is what you get at short notice...

I firmly believe that much of our day-to-day malcontentment is caused by a gap between expectations and reality. Nowhere is this more apparent than in our approach to Valentine's Day.

If you are single, then the whole thing is unbearably awful, for obvious reasons. You just want to go about your everyday business, yet every conceivable shop plasters itself with hearts and teddies, desperately seeking some red-hot Valentine-fuelled spending action. It's as though the whole world belongs to a club to which you are denied access, and it's not funny.

If you're in a relationship, then you have several obstacles to negotiate. Over the last few days, some of my favourite bloggers have been describing the awfulness in brilliantly graphic detail. Charlie Brooker's rant covers the expectation gap perfectly; Ms R provided a hilarious account of competitve rose-hauling between the girls in the office, whilst Maria over at Just Eat Your Cupcake nearly made me spit my tea with her account of the nonsense that her daughter's school are insisting on...

Where I live, Trophyism definitely rules supreme. A woman who keeps herself within the 'thin, blonde, tanned and manicured' parameters of the Essex Trophy Wife template expects (no, deserves, she would insist) no less than a brand new item for her Tiffany collection and dinner at The Ivy.

The wise and well-trained husband would do well to take note that in this case it's definitely the thought that counts - not his thought, no - the thought that this will show all those posh cows from Surrey at his City office that their flirtations with him are in vain, meaningless, he's hers dammit, and she's got another Tiffany ring to prove it...

This year, The Husband and I have concluded that, since we are still fortunate enough to have more sense than money, we're boycotting the whole thing. I fully expect that this will be the nicest and most relaxed Valentine's Day I have had since February 14th, 2002.

In 2002, I was working in an office that had a particularly strong anti-Valentine's vibe going on, due to the number of women there who had recently suffered a painful screwing over. I was one of them. No competitive comparisons of roses were permitted in our department that year - anyone who found themselves called down to reception to return with flowers faced a barrage of obscene hand gestures over the cubicle screens, accompanied by a lusty chorus of 'Oh, Just Fuck OFF!

No exceptions were made on the grounds of age, seniority, gender or sexual orientation...the smugger they were, the harder we jeered. It was fun.

When I got home that evening, I poured myself a gin and sat down in search of a TV programme unrelated to Valentine's Day. Before I found one, my flatmate H arrived home. H's luck with men had been just as awful as mine recently, and I think we'd both reached the stage of waking up on a Sunday morning wondering what kind of of manky specimen we were going to find in the kitchen this week...anyway, he said exactly what I needed to hear. 'Fuck them all darling - we are not staying in feeling sorry for ourselves on Valentine's Day, let's go out to dinner'.

A quick change of clothes later, off we went. We had a lovely meal in a Persian restaurant in South Kensington, where we scoffed at the poor mugs buying over-priced roses from the restaurant table muggers. We drank far too much wine, and then decided to test H's theory that you can say almost anything you like to a soppy couple on Valentine's Day as long as the man looks as though he is on a promise for an excellent night that might include a little extra something that he doesn't normally get. Our reasoning was that he's not going risk his luck by getting into a fight with a drunk gay man and his equally sloshed 5' 3" female companion.

Cheap pleasures admittedly, but still - so much more satisfying than getting a crappy 'joke' card and box of Ferrero Rocher. Or even worse, a creepy card or e-mail from the ex that you'll always be ex-directory for...

So, if you find yourself wanting to shout something other than 'Get a Room' at sloppy, slurping couples this Thursday, might I suggest the following for starters.*

'That's OK, you carry on, you clearly need the practice'
'No diamond ring? Oh bad luck...but still, it's a leap year you know.'
'I've had him - he was crap'

Happy Anti-Valentine's Day.





*Melissaria accepts no responsibility for any injuries sustained as a result of the above.