V Day

Well, whether you were dreading it or excitedly counting the hours til it arrived, Valentine's Day is here at last!

A friend emailed me last week, and mentioned that someone dubbed Valentine's Day as S.A.D.--Singles Awareness Day. I had to laugh. To all the singles out there, I offer this piece of advice: talk to married people. Tell them about your life, and watch their eyes glaze over in wistful envy as they remember their own carefree days of doing what they wanted when they wanted, with responsibility for no one but themselves.

I remember the first time I realized that the grass-is-always-greener syndrome applies to people on both sides of the "couple" line: I was working at a magazine publishing house, and chatting to the editor about weekend plans. I asked her about hers, and she started ticking off a laundry list of To Dos, most of which revolved around activities for her kids, for which she would be primarily a chauffer. When she asked me about mine, I thought a minute and said something like, "Well, I haven't quite made up my mind, but I might go snowboarding. Or wine tasting. I'll decide Saturday morning, I guess."

That's when I saw The Look of Wistful Envy. It made me feel a lot better about being single. It will do wonders for other singles too, I have no doubt.

I don't want to sound like a sour-grapes single, because I am not. At least, most of the time. So to all of you couples out there, have some fun today! Don't go overboard, though. Good Morning, America has an article on their web site that says you shouldn't. They are the media, so they must be right.

A couple weeks ago, a young girl told me she wanted to buy an iPod for her boyfriend for Valentine's Day, but she wasn't sure if it was "too much." I asked, "Is he a new boyfriend?" "Yes," she said with a shy smile. "Ah," I said. Then I let her friends make up her mind for her, and they agreed that she should just get the iPod, since he'd been "joking" that she should get him one. I refrained from giving my opinion, which would have been something like this: "Are you CRAZY?? Don't get him an iPod! That's more than $200 and you barely started dating this guy!!! So why do YOU have to buy it for him, just because he's hinting (manipulating??)!" (Maybe there is a reason I've been single for the past five years, hmmm.)

I sort of wished later that I HAD said something though. She seemed like a sweet kid, and I hate to think of her heart being trampled when the guy does one of two things: 1) runs away screaming because the gift was too much too soon, or 2) pats himself on the back for getting a lot while giving relatively little. I mean, was he planning on buying HER an iPod? I ask you.

Which brings me to the topic of Equivalent Giving. This is a delicate area, and I am an expert in Equivalent Giving Guilt Syndrome (EGGS), which is one reason why so few people got Christmas presents from me last year. Basically I always worry that I haven't given enough, in comparison to what someone else has given me. I can't deal with the emotional burden that is a natural derivative of EGGS; I mean, who needs it, really? So I've adopted the Ostrich Approach: bury my head in the sand and pretend that I am, in fact, an ostrich. And who ever heard of an ostrich buying Valentine's Day gifts? Or anything else, for that matter. It's not a perfect solution, I admit, but it's a start.

I am just kidding, of course, Basically my point is: There is a lot of pressure surrounding the official Day of Love. Which, in my view, sort of kills the love aspect of the day. Anxiety is not good for love. Try to avoid it, if you can.

But if you can't, maybe you should check out the following article about pickup lines, written by Pulitzer-Prize winning humorist, Dave Barry. It will make you laugh, and laughter is a lot better for love than anxious fretting, believe me.

Happy Valentine's Day!

The Importance of the Pickup Line