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Next week is 14 February. Valentine's Day. I won't be sending any Valentine cards this year, and I doubt if I will receive any. I don't really believe in all that romantic clap-trap. Well, it is a peculiar tradition, isn't it? Basically you send Valentine's cards for three reasons. You can send them to someone you really love. In this case you spend an obscene amount of money on a gigantic fancy card, made of real silk, embroidered with lace, embossed with hearts and roses and cupids (yuk!) which you duly present to your beloved - only to find they have forgotten to buy you anything. Then you have the pleasure of making them feel really guilty, and accusing them of not really loving you. Great fun! |
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Or you send one as a wind-up, to your brother or your best friend; you know, get someone else to write something really shocking inside it, address the envelope and then post it from Aberdeen. The recipient goes mad trying to work out just who sent it - they end up convinced they have a secret admirer. Or if you yourself are in the unfortunate position of being a secret admirer, you send a card to the object of your desire. Which, lets face it, is even more pointless. Why bother to send your heartthrob a steamy sexy lustful card telling them just what you would like to do with them - and leave it unsigned? What are they supposed to do when they receive it? Analyse the handwriting for clues to your identity? Hire a private detective to find out where it came from? It would be much easier to just pluck up your courage and say to their face just how you feel about them. Of course, you run the risk of getting your face slapped, but at least you would know where you stood! Every year there are pages and pages in the Times devoted to idiots broadcasting to the world that they really and truly do love someone. Fair enough, I suppose, but why do they have to use those icky pet names? Bunnykins, Floppydraws, Cuddlepuss... I can think of some names that are much more appropriate. But I had better not mention them here... But why have a special day when you declare your undying affection? Apart from lining the pockets of Mr Hallmark and WH Smiths, it's all so insincere. You fancy someone just as much on the other 364 days of the year and they are much more likely to believe your declarations if the whole world isn't joining in simultaneously. Whatever happened to spontaneity? When I was at school we had a special Valentine's Day Ball, to which all pupils, teachers and parents were invited. Well that guarantees a good time will be had by all! The randy kids are hardly likely to be able to follow through on the steamy cards they've been sending - not with Mummy and Daddy and the headmaster looking on. School discos in general were terrible affairs. I used to hate them. I was a late developer and when all my friends were discovering the adolescent joys of heavy petting I was still passionately into horse riding. I didn't know what they were talking about half the time (my friends, not the horses - I understood the horses perfectly!) Our entire school life until that point had been spent avoiding the boys, who we considered to be a lower form of life. Now all of a sudden my friends were going out of their way to 'accidentally' bump into whoever was the heart throb of the week - following them surreptiously down corridors, hanging around outside the boys changing rooms, covering their text books with the boy's name. So discos were a real mystery - and a misery - to me. I allowed my friends to dictate the way I should dress, and let them plaster my face with make up, when I would have been much happier in jeans and a baggy jumper (and probably would have looked better than I did in some of the creations they forced me into. Who remembers hot-pants? What an ugly item of clothing they were!) Then we would travel to the school hall in a group, blushing every time we walked past a man, convinced he was starting at our newly-developed bosoms. At the disco, we would dance together in a circle, whispering and gossiping, pretending to ignore the boys. (In my case it was no pretence. In my case the pretence was pretending I was having a good time!) One by one they would be dragged away to dance with a tall hunky sixth former until I was left alone sitting in a corner, downing copious quantities of pomagne (the only alcohol allowed at these events - if you can call pomagne alcoholic.) Sometimes a group of boys would bet one of their number - some pimply twit with terminal dandruff - 10p he wouldn't ask me to dance. The spotty youth would usually prefer to pay up. The last few records were always the slow smoochy ones. And the embarrassment of not having a partner by this time! I used to hide in the loos, it was the only way to escape the scorn. It didn't matter that I didn't WANT to have a sweaty teenager clutching me, sticking his tongue in my ear and trying to put his hands up my skirt... it just would have been nice to be asked! Eventually I matured enough to be passably attractive to the opposite sex, and then I was asked. But by this time I had more-or-less given up on the idea of romantic love, having decided that animals were infinitely more companionable than people. They don't expect to be sent a card on Valentine's Day. And they never try to stick their hands up your skirt! |
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