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

[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.