Anti-Valentine's Day

A word about Valentine's Day, since we're still in February, and now that I brought it up in my previous post and opened that can of worms...

I hate it.

Or maybe it's just my single status talking.

I'm pretty certain that if I were happily attached and in love Valentine's Day would be a pretty awesome, great day.

Let's lay down some of the facts:

1) The day started out in history as the day that St. Valentine became a matyr in the persecution of Emperor Aurelian. From what I can read on Valentine's Day there are a lot of people named Valentine and I'll shorten it to one for the sake of brevity.

2) 190 million Valentine's Day cards are sent every year. The handwritten sincere ones, while still existing, have been replaced by generic machine-churned store-bought clones.

3) Valentine's Day is one of the most profitable, revenue-providing "holidays" in the world, behind only Christmas and the Lunar New Year.

Here's what one of my friends said, "What's the point in going all out for Valentine's Day? It's like you're saving all your love and money every day, and then on Feb 14, BAM! You release it in one shot. You think that's going to impress her/him?"

True. The guys who do that are complete nincompoops.

But they are the minority I believe.

For me, I'm pretty sure that if I were in a relationship every day would be a special, meaningful one, and I would try to always surprise my other half, keep things fresh, keep things exciting.

But then if that's the case, Valentine's Day would become a day to show the world your love. It's as if, before V Day, what couples did were secrets, the surprises contained only between the two people involved.

On V Day, that love becomes a cause for competition! Everywhere you go, you see them smooching, groping, screaming in joy, trying to outwit, outplay and outlast the other couple three steps from them, to win the title of Most In-Love-Can't-You-See?-We're-In-Love! Couple This Side of the Equator.

On that Monday of this month - I'll remember my FIRST Anti-Valentine's Day (AVD) for as long as I live - I was still recovering from a date over the weekend, which I thought went pretty well.

Then I found out he didn't like me and then he started avoiding me.

So I was in a crabby mood, and my campmate/good friend, who we shall call M, was also recovering from a weird online stalker.

We decided that after work, we would head out to the nearest karaoke place to sing our hearts out about our lack of love lives.

The songs? Loud, trashy, raucous rock - borderline metal - songs, which do not revolve around love or if possible, contain themes of heartbreak and rejection.

We tried, sincerely we did, to put together such a playlist, but gay people are to metal as Sarah Palin is to the Democratic Party.

So we kickstarted the playlist the only way we knew how:

Christina Aguilera: Beautiful, Fighter

Katy Perry: Hot N Cold

Beyonce: All The Single Ladies, If I Were A Boy

Avril Lavigne: My Happy Ending

But after a while we just gave up on the theme of heartbreak and fully gave into our instincts:

Taylor Swift: Mine, You Belong With Me

Maroon 5: She Will Be Loved, Won't Go Home Without You

Lady Gaga: Telephone

Rihanna: Shut Up and Drive

Britney Spears: I'm A Slave 4 U, Do Somethin'

Madonna: 4 Minutes, Ray of Light

Somewhere in the middle of Carrie Underwood's Temporary Home I teared up, mainly because the music video is so amazing... but also because I just found it incredibly pathetic that on Valentine's Day I was singing bad karaoke in a dingy part of Singapore instead of being part of the Couples Competition taking place all over the world.

I have an insanely crazy competitive streak, and I almost always never back down from a direct confrontation, and it was as if the Day itself were telling me, "You Lost. I only come by once a year and you couldn't even rustle up ONE date for 24 hours?"

Yes, I couldn't.

I could, however, rap like Jay-Z on Empire State of Mind (M was Alicia) and for a moment, just pretend that I hadn't grown up yet and that the prospect of love was of no concern to me; getting that A for my next Math test would be the only thing that mattered in the world.

But who am I kidding?

I'm still waiting for the one I can surprise, who will surprise me, who will kiss me on Valentine's Day for one second and say, "There. We won the competition for shortest kiss ever on this stupid, commercial waste of time."

And I would laugh, and we would have dinner, and the day would just be like any other.