Noodling

[redbird]

Yes, true is complex (as serenejournal put it today.

I know that part of my lack of interest in Valentine's Day is connected to my general lack of interest in organized/scheduled holidays the rest of the year. Another part is that it's too often used, not as a celebration of love, but as a way of making single people--and anyone whose life isn't in a neat heterosexual couple, for that matter--feel excluded. And, of course, it's a serious Hallmark Holiday.

Besides, I'm not thrilled with a cultural structure that makes it difficult for me to shop for chocolate--something I very much like--at certain times of year.

However, I wonder if my difficulty in time-binding, in remembering how long ago things were and sometimes even what happened after which, is exacerbated by, or shares a cause with, that dislike of tracking holidays and anniversaries and such.

copperwise posted about why she does like Valentine's Day, because it also pressures people to acknowledge their partners and lovers. There's some good discussion out of that, including a remark by rysmiel about not getting or doing romance.

And I'm not sure if I do or not, because there may be more definitions of romance than of love. Or as many (even if we discard the ones that are purely literary). If this post has a purpose, it's to remind me to return to some of these thoughts.

Comments

[rdkeir.livejournal.com]

thanks for posting this - I want to think about it on tonight's drive south, even if I can't think of a coherent response yet.

*thinking*

[rdkeir.livejournal.com]

and now, after driving, I am still thoughtful....

Most people can understand the excluded-because-you-are-single feeling, and if we're lucky it's just a memory. I don't remember it being worse on Valentine's Day, partly because my lonely times were much more about feeling excluded from the happiness of people I actually knew, so that a holiday didn't really add to that loneliness.

I don't think of Valentine's Day as being particularly excluding to non-heterosexuals, though; my friends of other flavors seem to celebrate it as much as any other group does, and I am happy that Valentine's Day is no longer exclusively the property of one group. Perhaps it is a foreshadowing of the day when marriage will also be open to all. Co-opt and subvert the system from within.

Sometimes, I have written and sent Valentine's cards to friends who I love (but who were not lovers in the physical sense), and it was important to me to have an occasion to do so that was not bound up in birthdays, or Christmas. Fandom friends seem more comfortable with the idea that you can send Valentines to multiple people, and that is one of the things that makes the holiday fun for me. If there really were a successful cultural rule that I could only send one Valentine, to the person who was The One (In A Very Real and Legally Binding Sense), I'd enjoy it less.

A final thought, which would not have occured to me without your post. I have several friends who are currently single or having relationship troubles. How do they feel about Valentine's Day, and is there something I can do to make them feel loved?

[fuzzygabby.livejournal.com]

As someone who has spent virtually her entire life as a single person, I detest Valentine's Day. And the older I get, the more I hate it. I am really truly happy to be single, but there's something about V-Day that makes me feel left out and irritable. I'm not sure what to recommend on your part, just thought I should answer your question.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

I have never in my adult life been able to feel very serious about Valentine's Day (although I admit that when I was a teen it was somewhat Significant). I seldom see a serious Valentine's greeting card that I would want, or even could stand, to give or receive. I do like giving my kids silly ones, along with some candy, but for the most part J and I don't do much about Valentine's Day. What's done in daily life matters so much more.

[eleanor.livejournal.com]

I've always had a problem with V-Day, have always wanted the chocolate and flowers, felt like a loser for wanting it, and have seldom gotten it and then feel both angry and guilty at the anger. This year V-day is a kid day, and I got around it be inviting the kids, ex H.B, his girldriend and her baby, Harry, and my house guest, and declaring them all my Valentines. There will be chocolate and cards for everybody, pink food and drinks, and it will be fun for everybody. Having them all come here is better than going out to dinner or getting flowers, at least for me.

Similarly, we used to celebrate "everybody's birthday," a day each summer in which the entire extended family was assembled for a festive meal, everyone bough everyone else anonymous and inexpensive gifts, and there was a cake wishing eveerybody a happy birthday. So many occasions can be exclusive, and there is something to be said for being inclusive.

[fuzzygabby.livejournal.com]

I've always had a problem with V-Day, have always wanted the chocolate and flowers, felt like a loser for wanting it, and have seldom gotten it and then feel both angry and guilty at the anger.

I love that! That describes me feelings, exactly.

Re: Noodling

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

*boggle*. if my partners needed to be pressured to acknowledge me, v-day attention would be entirely insufficient, and we would actually not be partners at all. society applies all sorts of pressures i don't care for, and i am still working on giving my partners more freedom from them, since they've unfortunately picked up some, and feel at times inadequate (when they are anything but).

i'm with you, i don't care for hallmark holidays.

Re: Noodling

[redbird]

copperwise is coming at this from an angle I'm happy not to have experienced or come anywhere close to: of having been someone's "secret girlfriend", the person they were happy to have sex with but not to be seen with in public.

That's not something I'd ever have been willing to put up with. (I've hidden a couple of relationships from parents--one reason of many that I'm glad to be a grown-up is that I don't have to do that anymore--but not because my loves were embarrassed or otherwise unwilling to be seen with me.)

Re: Noodling

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

*ugh*. oh yeah, i was once put into that position, and decided it wasn't for me. i feel for people who don't believe they deserve better (though if it is because there's cheating going on, they carry some of the responsibility for that).

i still don't see how pressuring the sad sack of doodoo who's hiding their relationship into v-day gifts improves that situation.

Re: Noodling

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

That's not something I'd ever have been willing to put up with.

Same here. I was a bit hesitant to say that over in the discussion in copperwise's LJ, because it can come off sounding like ". . . so what's the matter with you," which is not the way I would mean it any more than you. It's a simple statement of fact. I often think it would be helpful if people could have honest discussions around the question of why some people put up with such treatment and some don't, even when they have similar backgrounds, for example. But it seems so difficult to avoid having at least some of those who do put up with it feel some implication of that ". . . so what's the matter with you"--in my experience.

[reynaud.livejournal.com]

(Hi, I'm a friend of cthulia, and I stumbled on this post via her Friend's page.)

While I, as a present single, surely feel the exclusion on Valentine's Day (I was about to use the abreviation "VD", but I'm old enough to remember that it once had a very different, albeit related, connotation), I actually have never felt that it was being used in order to exclude me and my fellow singles. The businesses just see it as a good thing, so they push their wares as best they can. (Yes, it is a holiday created in the boardrooms.) They just don't care that there are people who are going to feel badly about not being included. But then, I never expect large corporations to actually care about people who aren't their consumers.

Of course, knowing that they don't mean to be exclusionary doesn't mean that I still don't feel crappy about not being able to show my affections to a someone.

[volund.livejournal.com]

And, of course, it's a serious Hallmark Holiday.

Yeah, that is one of my problems with it, the way in which it has been puffed up and inflated in importance for the sake of commerce.

I don't mind the sentiment. I do mind being needled that I need to display it by spending money.

[marykaykare.livejournal.com]

I adore all occasions for giving gifts, esp. chocolate and flowers. I don't care how much it's commercialized -- what's important is what it means to you and those you love. It also amazes me how much less I NEED to have a big deal made about Valentines or birthday or anniversary since I became convinced someone actually does love me. This should not, however, stop anyone and everyone from giving me flowers and chocolates.

:-)

[redbird]

Somehow, for me, it feels more significant if someone gives me chocolate just because they feel like it, because they like me and know or guess I'll enjoy the gift, than because it's such-and-such date.

Also, that sort of cramming of gift-giving into a few days makes shopping more irritating both for the people who are buying gifts for whichever event it is, and for those of us who just happen to think that it would be a nice day to pick up some chocolate.

In that regard, birthdays are easier than holidays, because they're spread out over the year.

[liv]

I used to think of myself as the kind of person who doesn't do romance, but then I fell into a relationship that was (by almost any definition) extremely romantic. The initiative very much came from my partner, and I was kind of resistant to it at first. I started doing things like giving flowers and going out on formal dates and making opportunities to sit watching the sunset because it pleased her. Then I found I was getting something out of it myself. It worked well in a context where there was real feeling there, real friendship as well as intense emotional connection. It didn't feel like we were focusing on the symbols of romance in the absence of anything for the symbols to represent.

I find the whole idea of Valentine's Day fairly yukky for lots of reasons, and even in this general romantic context I was pretty reluctant to celebrate it. I did a whole lot of, can't I just give you chocolate and take you out some other day when it's not vastly expensive? The argument which eventually convinced me was: we have to show that Valentine's Day isn't just for straight people.

Which we did rather successfully, I think: we turned up in a favourite restaurant early enough to get a table without booking. The waiter seemed to think we hadn't realized it was VD. Oh, it's ok, we do realize. But... it's normally a time when, you know, couples go out together. Yes, we realize that too. *long pause while waiter finally twigs*. He treated us like absolute queens for the rest of the evening, and when he left the establishment to set up his own restaurant, we were always his favourite customers.

After that it became a point of pride to find VD cards suitable for two women of taste to exchange. They do exist! I suspect finding explicitly poly cards might be a bit harder, admittedly.

[redbird]

Reading this, I realized that it's been a while since I got cattitude flowers. But it can wait another week, because I've loved him for two decades and we don't need to buy the artificial scarcity and inflation of flower prices that happens this week.

But that's in the context of a heterosexual relationship, one that gets scads of societal approval.

I've never gotten my other sweetie flowers.

I do buy them both chocolate.

[liv]

But it can wait another week, because I've loved him for two decades
That's very sweet indeed! People who can say things like that really do make Hallmark holidays entirely superfluous.

But that's in the context of a heterosexual relationship, one that gets scads of societal approval.
There's nothing like experiencing both approved and disapproved relationships to make one acutely conscious of the difference! When I was seeing someone who happened to be Jewish and male, the number of people who felt it necessary to celebrate that irrelevant fact was really quite shocking.

The thing about buying flowers, though, is that society doesn't really have a mechanism to enforce whom you buy them for. I mean, I don't walk into florist and have someone admonish me, I hope you're buying those flowers for a respectable monogamous boyfriend! So if I wanted to buy flowers for random friends, or several different partners, or someone with whom I had a freaky BDSM relationship or whatever, I wouldn't have much of a problem doing that.

Regarding the chocolate problem, I think what I'd do would be to find an ethnic shop that didn't necessarily follow the prevailing cultural rituals. Though I don't know if such exist or are easily accessible in your part of the world. (Obviously ethnic shops exist, duh, but they might all be really awkward to get to or sufficiently integrated that they do mark VD or something.)

clarifying

[liv]

Someone pointed out to me that my using the phrase 'freaky BDSM relationship' in my previous comment might be construed as offensive. I have apologized to that person, but I wanted to say it here as well: many apologies to anyone I may have offended with that remark.

I meant that the hypothetical narrow-minded florist, as a symbol of intolerant society in general, might classify the relationship as freaky, not in the least that I think so. But I was careless with my words in discussing what is obviously a sensitive topic, and for that I'm sorry.