I wrote this last year, and it still seems to apply, sadly.

[savethewave]

Valentine's Day: It sets men up for failure.I was watching TV yesterday, and I saw story after story with the message "stuck in a bind over Valentines Day?" or commercials advertising diamond jewelry costing thousands. Men are set up to fail

Comments

Sheep.

[cinema_babe]

For the love of God, when can we stop with our coveting shiny things, like a bunch of magpies lining their nests? Women are conditioned to buy into the hype that a bunch of shiny baubles and gaudy crap are the only way to show one is loved, and we stupid men are conditioned to fail.

It's because people are big, fat, bloated sheep blindly following the border collie of the almighty marketing dollar.

A little bit of sweetness mixed with a bit of cheese can be nice. Mix in crass propaganda that equates depth of a man's love with (or anyone's love for that matter) with the dollar value of the present given and it smells rancid.

Happy Freakin' Valentine's Day Everybody!

Re: Sheep.

[savethewave]

If someone genuinely thought about the gift, that is what I care about, not how much it cost.

Re: Sheep.

[sanctuarymoon]

Ok, if the thought counts, then I can assure you there are certain circumstances when a Vermont Teddy Bear delivered to the office is perfectly acceptable...like when you are having a ROUGH time at work, and you are miserable. In my case, it was the perfect thing a few years ago to really cheer me up.

But I would say that on the 9 or 10 of the other 11 Valentine's Days that Dan and I have known each other, he's given me action figures, DVDs, Lego playsets, CDs and weird plush (like a green teddy bear leftover from Xmas that we saw at the store every week) and I've loved all of it, because it was always something I'd been looking for or definitely wanted for a while, and he really thought about surprising me. I've given him action figures, DVDs and CDs mostly...but one year (my best ever, and I will probably never top it), I paid off a guitar he had on layaway by sneaking the claim ticket out of his wallet.

And you know what? Sometimes cheese is brie!

[savethewave]

I'm not anti-Valentine's Day. Far from it. I am anti-consumerism, where people buy into the myth that "more expensive=better," even when the gift took no real thought on the part of the giver, just their tossing money at something so their "obligation" about getting a gift can be assuaged.

[dariens_haircut]

Oh yeah? Well I am anti-Valentine's Day. It is, in my opinion, the worst of the Hallmark holidays. Precisely because I am anti-consumerism. I am also anti-having-to-satisfy-some-obligation-because-somebody-who's-probably-dead-said-so. You may have already seen my gesture for one of my sweeties. It cost pretty much nothing. Just a picture of my windshield. Hopefully, it is better than any $6 card. No card will contain a reference to something that she and I did together previously.

Well, almost no card. The hedgehog that she posted a week or so ago was a "just because" gift. It referred to a friend of ours years ago who had a real one. Shared experience. She loved it. It was overpriced, but not too badly so. So I got it for her. No bloody holiday needed.

[sanctuarymoon]

Valentine's Day totally rules if you remember that it's actually the Gnostic festival of Lupercalia....so people should seriously just fuck a lot and be done with it!

[frenchthebully]

Reason #849 why Kevin and I don't celebrate Valentine's Day.

[ex_the_idea_555]

Thankfully, we don't do Valentine's Day in my relationship. I hate being doted on and I'm really not the whole "spend all your money on me to validate me and this relationship" type.

Just make me a mix CD and we'll call it even.

[jennvix]

Ditto.

[dariens_haircut]

Ugh. Zales et al. Diamonds are nearly worthless; their prices driven high by artifical forces exerted by a cartel. The industry has several very disgusting attributes.

• Artificial market, which is largely a construct of marketing and oppressive market control.
• Appalling conditions endured by the people who do the actual work of mining.
• In some areas, funding of civil wars with the proceeds
• Surely something I've forgotten

This year, they have this new jewelry design. Surely, you've seen it. It is a bunch of stones arranged in a lazy "S" shape. They even explain in the commercial what it is supposed to represent. Worthless, sentimental pap; invented with the sole purpose of making money and with no other redeeming value. Ooh... the stones get bigger in the series, just like your love. Um... If your relationship is like that, who needs a trinket to show it? And if you really want to buy into their line, what happens when you've gotten to the largest stone? Do you have to break up? Suicide pact? Change directions such that you

[triphala]

That reminds me of the cheesy, wasteful, "Would you marry her all over again?" ring they were advertising a couple of years ago.