Well, it’s that time of year again.
That’s right: Friday the 13th.
Right before Valentine’s Day.
If, like me, you’ve never cottoned to a day meant for surprise romantic gestures that comes like clockwork every year, here are some ways to ward off Valentine’s Day.
Let me know if you join me in any of them.
Ignore it: This is the most elegant and non-hypocritical solution. And if you can pull off a straight-faced "no, I’ve never heard of Valentine’s Day," all the better.
Wear orange: A nice "Orange Crush" t-shirt or some tangerine pants make a nice clashy statement against all the reds and pinks of Valentine’s Day.
Get creative with candy hearts: There’s always the classic fall-back "scrape off the pre-written message and write your own in red ink" method of dealing with "say yes" and "U R Tops" type candy heart messages.
A few of the more recent candy heart messages, especially the ones intended to reflect connection in modern life, satirize themselves, though. "Email me" and "fax me," no matter how ubiquitous those modes of communication have become, will never be romantic. ("Text me" may have a chance.)
My college friends and I laughed at the candy conversation hearts we encountered a few years ago, some of which said, inexplicably, "Book Club."
In honor of a candy that clearly had a sense of humor, if unwittingly, we decided to celebrate Valentine’s Day with an ice cream cake portraying a "Book Club" heart in icing.
The ice cream was mint chocolate chip, making the cake taste significantly better than the actual Necco-waferlike conversation hearts.
Get creative with Valentine’s Day cards: Instead of those little rectangular perforated "Bee Mine" cards, or the more formal folded versions with Hallmark poetry on them, switch it up. Try sending blank cards with handwritten messages in them.
If your friends or loved ones have a sense of humor, you might consider non-V-Day-related messages, such as "you didn’t finish washing the dishes last night." Or if you insist on pre-written cards, consider the "sympathy on the death of your pet" collection.
Horror movie marathon: This is how I’m going to spend my Valentine’s Day.
And no cheating - this is not an excuse to clutch your beloved closer than usual in terror.
In fact, the more bizarre the movie, the more esoteric the reference, the better. If you snagged any dollar DVDs from a pharmacy or department store around Halloween, you probably have a few that will do: "The House on Haunted Hill," "Atom Age Zombies" or "The Brain That Wouldn’t Die" are winners.
I recommend "Ringu," the original Japanese version of "The Ring." Despite our Chinese school’s Japanese karate instructor psyching himself up before watching it (for the second time) by rocking back and forth and repeating "it’s okay; I know karate," it’s not what most Americans would call actually scary.
The first three Alien movies, while not technically horror, are also acceptable.
Go international: China has a "lover’s day," too, in which boys get the girl they like flowers, and girls get boys books.
It adds some spice to the otherwise tired routine of red roses, fancy dinner out and marriage proposal that plays itself out every year, to have a slightly "ethnic" twist on romance.
And it’s nice to have a prescribed gift item - and the guarantee that the guy you’re into will have no more excuses for not reading the Twilight quadrilogy.
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2 comments:
Or you could do what my wife and I do, which is to spend time with a beloved friend who is alone for the stupidest, most media-pressured holiday-about-fantasy out there.
Although I do admit we make breakfast together and exchange pleasant little (hand written!) cards about things we liked accomplishing together in the past year.
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