Valentine’s Day? Bah humbug! If you ask me, love is not in the air, everywhere you look around. Love does not lift us up where we belong. Love isn’t a many splendored thing. All you need is not love. Oh ok, I’ll stop (in the name of love), but just so you know, as far as I’m concerned, Saint Valentine, you can eat your own heart out.
Yes, it seems Miss W is the unofficial president of the island’s Anti-Valentine’s brigade, but please let me explain. My aversion to the world’s biggest Hallmark holiday started at a very young age. You see it’s my mother’s birthday on February 14, which means I’ve always ignored any V.Day sentiments and focused on singing happy birthday instead.
Unfortunately, Mama W’s birthday falling on said occasion also meant buying her flowers was out of the question (tripling in price for one-day-only, not to mention the queues in the florist!), the best birthday cards were nowhere to be seen (ditched to the back of the stockroom to make way for sloppy sentiments and tacky pink bows and ribbons), getting a dinner reservation was near impossible and as for giving the traditional mum-esque gift of perfume? Well, you try being elbowed around by a bunch bumbling blokes snapping up last minute offerings for their ladies!
So please let me take this opportunity to say sorry to Mama W, for what must seem like a lifetime of bad cards, thoughtless gifts and half-hearted celebrations. My heart is always in it… it’s just that everyone else’s heart-shaped sentiments get in the way!
Anyone who’s seen the recent Academy Award nominated film Blue Valentine (not to mention all Beyonce’s single ladies) might be quick to agree that in today’s world, love certainly doesn’t seem to conquer all (because if you can’t stay in love with Ryan Gosling, I mean really, who could you love?), but ranting aside, that’s not to say Miss W is not an advocate of love. Quite the opposite in fact. I’m love’s biggest cheerleader.
I believe in happily ever after, that some day your prince will come and that there’s no such thing as a Bad Romance. It’s better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all, right Romeo and Juliet? And Carrie and Big, Ross and Rachel, Homer and Marge, Buffy and Angel and the list goes on (though Bill Compton, perhaps it’s time you cut your losses. I’m just saying).
I’m not even single for St. Val’s sake! I just think you shouldn’t be bullied into publicly declaring your love for someone on one particular day in February.
Thankfully here in Ibiza we’re not too inundated by OTT V.Day celebrations – of course, it’s there if you want it (as you can no doubt tell by this week’s White-Escapes homepage), but you can forget ridiculous cards, floral bouquets, helium balloons and overpriced, impossible-to-book restaurant dinners.
Of course, should Señor W opt to whisk me away for the weekend, surprise me with something a little sparkly or simply leave a puppy on my doorstep with a big pink bow tied around its neck… well, who am I to knock it back?
Oh Cupid… just shoot me now.
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