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Another good thing I've discovered about living in Germany: They all but ignore Valentine's Day here. Not, let me stress for those who were planning on air-mailing me flowers or something, that I have a problem with the holiday. The constant barrage of pink-tinted advertisements does have a tendency to send me around the bend, however, so it was nice to skip it this year.

So, that said, I wasn't able to summon up the either the angst or the sturm und drang necessary to write a real Valentine's Day screed. Instead, I will leave you with this link and the following essay, which I wrote last year.

Enjoy.

A shower of schlock

Who's actually looking for gourmet body paint? Sure, regular body paint -- that makes sense -- but there's actually somebody out there who sees an ad for gourmet paint pop up on the Internet and says, "Well, the plain stuff is too low-class. But this – this is gourmet!"

You know people are buying it, though. While Cupid, in anticipation of Feb. 14, busily makes sure his quiver is filled, mere mortals are stocking up on less pointy gifts: chocolates, flowers, lingerie and, probably, all sorts of body paint.

Not because they want to, but because they must. The rules of Valentine’s Day have been laid down and those who value their relationships must comply: Buy, the gods thunder from Olympus. BUY! Banner ads clog the Internet. Gorgeously glittering diamonds sparkle from the television screen. Chocolatiers, vintners and chandlers tout their wares in a succession of newspaper and magazine spots.

The consumer culture has taken over Cupid’s celebration, turning what should be a chance to express the most heartfelt of emotions into a shower of schlock, warping Valentine’s Day into a relationship chore.

Make no mistake: The holiday is wonderful in theory, providing a day in which the fullest expression of love can be shown. In practice, though, Valentine’s Day is more akin to New Year's Eve, the Superbowl and Backstreet Boys concerts: a whole lot of hype, a huge amount of excitement -- and a slightly icky feeling afterwards when things don't live up to expectations.

And it's not like they ever do.

Like all over-hyped events, so much energy and planning are required for Valentine’s Day that there’s no room left for fun. Instead of enjoying the holiday, celebrants act like they’re running through a checklist, buying anything red because their overlords have instructed them to.

This cycles back, of course, to the importance advertisments have trained us to place on the holiday. If he really loved you, implies the DeBeers ads, you’d be wearing more diamonds. If you really cared about her, Victoria says secretively, she’d have more nightgowns.

By using Valentine's Day to gauge how well a relationship is going, the sense of joy and lightness that marks any true celebration of love is sucked out of the occasion. Men don’t flock to florists and clamor at candy stores because they want their women to be happy; they do so because they dread being the topic of conversation at her office on Feb. 15.

Like Pschye lighting her candle to get a look at Cupid, lovers push too hard at Valentine's Day, looking for too much information. The holiday becomes a relationship barometer, with every action plumbed for meaning, every gesture scored and rated, every nuance replayed over lunch with friends the next day.

True joy comes in spontaneity -- the flowers delivered to the office out of nowhere, the note tucked in her purse to let her know you're thinking of her, the dinner at a favorite restaurant "just because." When they focus on living up to the holiday, Valentine's celebrants will, at best, meet expectations, buying the cliched gifts and fulfilling the stereotypical roles.

But don’t mistake the shower of heart-shaped boxes and ribbon-entwined vases as a true display of affection.

Doing something nice on Valentine's Day doesn't show you care. It just shows you're bright enough to pay attention to a month's worth of advertising.

posted at 3:39 PM by Timothy J. Gibbons | link