How This Strident Feminist Finally Embraced Valentine's Day
Being anti-romantic isn't going to make you any happier.
AI Generated | Canva Some people are built to be sappy. My sister, for instance. Her turn-ons include romantic comedies, diamonds, flowers, snuggling, and babies. An elaborate wedding proposal involving a Jumbotron, an adorable monkey in a tuxedo, and enough carats to restrict normal finger mobility would completely kill her. If you are one of those people, then this article is not for you.
Everyone else, listen up: When it comes to the lovey-dovey stuff, you are not nearly as punk-rock as you pretend to be. Yeah, I know, nobody wants to be in one of those gross couples that makes single people gag, but deep down inside, I bet you like doing some of that touchy-feely junk. Snuggling. Giggling. The occasional sweet nothing. Well, it's time to own up to it. Stop living a lie. By continuing to deny your mushy side, you're only hurting yourself. It's not easy, I know. But I can help, because I did it.
Let me share my coming out story with you. My distaste for the traditionally romantic has mostly centered on gifts. There's something crass about popular images of couples-type giving, a kind of money-equals-love formula that I find icky. Like in those diamond ads where the message is always something along the lines of "Don't be fooled, at heart all women are grasping, materialistic harpies." Plus they always feature dudes buying stuff for their ladies, and never the reverse, so there's an air of anti-feminism about the whole thing.
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Anyway, for the longest time, I was way too sophisticated for all that stuff. Every time an anniversary or Valentine's Day rolled around, I was quick to tell whomever I was dating that he was not to worry about such lame, Hallmark-generated hoopla. I would then proceed to look down my nose at the candy-concealing bears and heart-encrusted lingerie, happy with my intellectual superiority. I was, I imagine, a real treat to have around. Then, one February, everything changed.
It was like this: I was sitting around with my boyfriend, Frank, drinking a beer, when he asked what I wanted to do for Valentine's Day. I suggested the usual nothing, wondering if he had forgotten what a lovely time we had had the previous year doing nothing. Frank nodded. Then he mentioned that he was thinking of buying me a gift — if not for Valentine's Day, exactly, then just because — and suggested that maybe I consider doing the same. I sneered. This was the moment I looked forward to every time I sat through a De Beers ad, the moment for self-righteous speechifying. "Why would we want to do that?" I asked, gearing up to lower the boom. His answer flicked on the cartoon lightbulb over my head: "Well, because I thought it would be a nice thing to do."
"A nice thing to do." How can you argue against doing nice things for a person you like? You really can't. Feeling like the Grinch during the heart-grows-three-sizes scene, I realized that perhaps it wasn't outside the realm of possibility that couples might give each other presents not because of capitalist brainwashing, but because they like to be generous with their partners. Just maybe, what you do for each other isn't as important as why and how you do it.
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Frank and I agreed then to buy each other something special and, you know, meaningful. A thing that the other person would want to have. Which, it turns out, is an odd combination of more and less sappy than just grabbing an off-the-shelf plush from Target. More sappy because you have to put a lot of thought into delighting someone you love, and less sappy because you're not doing anything that would make my sister say "Awww." So when Frank gave me the nose ring he had picked out and I gave him a signed comic book, it did feel like we were doing something nice for each other, and with very little associated saccharin.
It's possible to find a happy medium between sticky sweet and bitterly repressed. Here's an example involving people other than me: A few years back, my friends Josh and Karen announced they had decided to get married. My initial reaction was to be highly skeptical about the whole thing. Not because of the commitment; they'd been living together for years and were good for each other. No, I was bothered by the inherent lameness of having a wedding.
I had only ever been to big, puffy, expensive bridezilla-type ceremonies with lurid bridesmaids' dresses and crazy parents-in-law and single women brawling over the bouquet. Why, I wondered, would people I respected want to put themselves through that kind of misery? It had never occurred to me that at your wedding you can do whatever you want.
Rather than a church and a minister, Josh and Karen had an awesome outdoor spot and an old friend officiating. Instead of "Wedding March," Karen walked down the aisle to "Green Onions" by Booker T. and the MG's. Instead of the uptight, buttoned-up ceremony, I had been expecting, they had thrown themselves a weekend-long party with all of their best friends and family and it was wicked fun. Everyone seemed genuinely happy for them and happy to be there.
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Photo: Tembela Bohle/Pexels
If weddings can be cool, anything can. It shouldn't be embarrassing to admit that you love somebody — fifth grade was a long time ago. Not even the grumpiest anti-romantic wants to go through life alone and miserable, a stinky, senile cat her only companion. At the same time, it takes a while to get comfortable with your smooshy side. You kind of have to grow into it —learn to love the love.
In that spirit, when I recently told my roommates and best friends that Frank and I had decided to move in together, I choked back all of the practical justifications for the move (saving money on rent, getting more living space, simplifying our scheduling, blah blah blah) and told them the painfully earnest truth: that we liked each other enough to want to share a house.
Naturally, I got ribbed for it, but good. I guess I deserved it after all the grief I'd given friends like Josh and Karen when they made moves to pair off. I stood by my moment of sappyness, though. And as I sit here in my shared apartment, with my shared cat my sentimental nose jewelry, and my decidedly un-rock 'n' roll Netflix subscription, I’m struck by this thought: I may have ended up the kind of becoupled homebody I used to roll my eyes at, but unlike my ex-roommates, I am getting some regularly. And what could be cooler than that?
Audrey Ference is a freelance writer and the lead instructional writer at Aceable. She has been featured in Fox News, SFGate, Chron, Realtor.com, San Francisco Chronicle, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Connecticut Post, Midland Daily News, New Haven Register, and more.