Three V-Day contemplations

1. My boyfriend and I passed the 10-year point in our relationship a few months ago. The one and only time we ever commemorated Valentine's Day in the way that our straight counterparts are expected to do was on our first V-Day together, and that only happened because I was being a dick about things, letting work get in the way of personal considerations, and so on. So the bf made a big point out of it, made me feel bad that I was late getting to his house to make dinner, acted like he wanted to call the whole thing off, and so on. It all turned out well by the end of that night, and we have never since "celebrated" this date and have generally considered that to be one of the few benefits of our status, that we are exempt from such commercially-mandated behaviors as buying cards, candies, flowers and other such nonsense on February 14. This morning on NPR's Morning Edition, I heard a short segment anticipating how possibly very soon even Hallmark, the staid greeting card creator of the entire holiday (in alliance with chocolate-industrial sexist complex), might one year soon start having a line LGBT Valentine's Day cards. While I believe that my people deserve to be able to do all the same things our str8 counterparts get to do--even give each other sappy Hallmark cards--I sure don't plan to ever buy any of them myself, and J would probably puke if I ever gave him one. 

2. It strikes me as criminally stupid that grade school-age children are made to participate in V-Day activities. Does this still go on? Or is that a thing of the past, dead with my generation? I hope so. I was reminded of this by one of my Twitter pals who recalled how mortifying and miserable it was to receive Valentine cards from girls who clearly wanted nothing to do with him. I had this same experience. I specifically remember this ordeal from third grade, in Mrs. Martin's classroom, because a couple of the kids specifically refused to give certain classmates cards (it was required that every kid give every other kid a card). And it was a big fucking ugly scene with shouting and tears. Here's the thing: Valentine's Day is supposedly a day about "romance"--by which they might mean "fucking"--and therefore is probably not age-appropriate for 8-year-olds. Mrs. Martin, though, laid down the Valentine's Day Law on us 8-year-olds, and soon enough the hold-outs handed over cards to the reject kids, me included. [An aside, this same Mrs. Martin--her real name, she's dead, she won't care--also made my perceived queerness a focus of lengthy class discussion one day and decreed that henceforth I was to play kickball at recess like a proper boy, and then subjected me to further sanctions when that did not pan out...so you might imagine that I harbor a bit of resentment from that year.]

3. If you are in love, newly in love, or oldly in love, or just plain comfortable in love, and if it makes you happy to celebrate this heart day with all its trappings, then do please enjoy it (I'm not that big a jerk!).