MADER'S RANTS Ahhh, Valentine's Day February 20, 2004 - Ahhhh, Valentine’s. A holiday ya love to hate. Before I upchuck about this holiday of today, a brief history of this holiday of yesterday. Maestro, some traveling music please… Based on a Roman holiday to spook wolves and make young hotties fertile, Valentine’s Day was later adopted and mangled by the English after the Romans conquered them. The English threw in the love with some hokum about birds mating. Then the Catholic church co-opted it as a feast day to honor a couple of dead Christians named Valentine... Priests encouraged young couples to get married... blah blah blah. Hey I said it would be a history. So I paraphrased. Want more? Buy a book. Fast forward to today and ya have the heaping pile of parrot droppings we have now. I know you’re saying, “John you are so cynical!” No. While I have a laundry list of mistakes and bad value judgments that have laughingly been called relationships through the years, I have found a bed buddy and for the most part am fairly happy with my life. She’s a bud. We both agree that we’ll never get married, but the sex is good and we both have our own lives. She’s a bit of a loon, but so am I. What more can the male animal ask for? Rock on, you truly liberated women you!!!!!! God loves you all!!! Nope, my views on Valentine’s Day come from good ole observation. Like most things in life Valentines represents an ideal. In its purest form, it is an expression of love between two individuals. A reaffirmation of that which is experienced every day in the relationship. Beautiful idea isn’t it? But like most things in life, however, the reality is different. Valentine’s Day seems less of an affirmation and more of a substitute for things that should have been done and said through out the year. Last Saturday, I sat at my favorite restaurant and watched couple after couple I had never seen before came in for dinner. Why only go out for an anniversary or a holiday like Valentine’s Day? If dinner alone in a romantic place is that important, than those of us that pay rent at the end of the bar should see you more often. Part of the problem is that most people aren’t really in “love.” They are in “like” or in “lust” but not in “love.” And marriage itself is a safety net - a haven to take shelter in so we don’t feel lonely any more. Or worse still, it’s a sense of obligation after she gets knocked up. Curse Absolute Vodka and those damn faulty Trojans!!! Don’t get me wrong. There are happy couples, but they don’t seem to be the norm. If it were, then 3 out of 5 marriages wouldn’t end in divorce. We in the media only add to this crap. We create bizarre expectations and present them as the rule and not the exception. Who can forget the movie “Jerry McGuire” with Renee Zellweger saying, “I love him for the man he wants to be. I love him for the man he could be. I love him for the man he will be.” Hey! Here’s an idea, sister! Love him for who he is! People are living things, not houses needing to be fixed up. That’s part of the problem. For a lot of folks, a relationship is “validation.” What kind of twisted puppy are you that you can’t be happy or self sufficient without some one else being there? Do you have to have someone there to fix - or someone there fixing you - to bring you joy? It must suck knowing that if you had to be alone for any period of time, you would be a light snack of the food chain of life. Even if we don’t feel love, we go through the rituals. We do the things we are taught we should do by following steps “A” through “M.” Romance in popular culture is quantified and packaged. I read a study recently that on average, men spend 130 to 160 bucks for gifts. Women spend between 30 and 60. Why is love measured by the dollar amount? And why the hell is it if you have penis you get squat? A quick show hands folks… How many guys have bought jewelry only to get a really, really, really nice card? (I hope Hallmark burns in hell some day!) The media only encourages this disparity in the commercials we pump out. We’ve all seen the commercial with the young couple walking through the plaza in Venice (‘cause we all have done that) and the man shouts “I love this women.” She acts embarrassed and tells him too hush until he hands her a diamond ring roughly the size of a small child’s head. Then and only then does she grab him for all she’s worth and exclaim “I love him! I love him!” Noooooooooooooooo, she isn’t a materialistic whore. The thing is this, to make Valentine’s Day mean more than a shopping spree, us guys need to express our feelings more often. No, climaxing on her forehead once a week - while fun - doesn’t count. Send her flowers throughout the year. Take her to dinner now and then. Ladies, stop playing at being independent and really become self sufficient. Its easier to find “true love” when you can meet some one as an equal and not as a future tax write off under the “dependents” column. And everyone needs to stop expecting every one else to fix them. It’s corny, but it’s true. You can’t really love someone else until you at least sorta kinda like your self. Till next time... John W. Mader