Since I posted some Valentine's Day tips for men, I figured it would be helpful to post some tips for the women, too. I want to make sure everyone has a super-fantastic-non-disappointing "holiday".
Ladies, some of you are single and some of you aren't. For all you single ladies, I have a pretty good idea that you might not be very happy about today being Valentine's Day. You may have even called it Fake Over-Commercialized Sucks-To-Be-Single Pretend Love Day. I know this because I have been single on Valentine's day and I wasn't very happy about it. Single women sometimes view being single as a very unfortunate burden. You view your singleness as a medical condition, like diabetes or scoliosis. You do not have love scoliosis. I swear.
You probably hate Valentine's Day because your last Valentine's Day went something like this:
You spent all day pacing back and forth, listening for the doorbell because you had a fantasy that a delivery from a secret admirer would come for you- most likely eight dozen roses with a precious gem in the center of each one. In your fantasy, the secret admirer would show up on your doorstep, revealing himself to be that really muscular tall guy that you're always winking at in the produce section or your long-lost high school sweetheart who just left his wife because he's still in love you after all these years.
By about 5pm when this hadn't happened (in fact, nothing arrived from ANYONE, not even your mother), you began to suspect that you might actually be pathetic. You decided that if your day ended with you at home alone, you would curl up and die. In a panic, you called your other single friends and made plans to go out on the town together because dammit, you are smart, independent women and you don't need a man anyways. You got all dressed up and went to the local grab-assery, where you pretended that this was the exact way you wanted to spend Valentine's Day all along. Six dry martinis later, you were sitting on a random guy's lap, telling him what a douche canoe your ex boyfriend is. Later, after a sloppy makeout session on the pool table, Random Guy got a booty call text from his ex and decided you were too sloppy to put out, so he told you he was going to the bathroom and never came back. Crestfallen and three sheets to the wind, you got a cab home alone, leaving your wallet on the floor in the back seat in a drunken stupor. At home, you conducted one last thorough inspection of the house and yard and garage to check for the secret admirer flowers that didn't come earlier. You probably twisted your ankle trying to survey the yard for presents in your high heels. When no flowers were found, you cried and looked at photos of old boyfriends and listened to Mariah Carey songs before finally drunk-texting an incoherent message to your ex to tell him that you hate him and you think he's a gigantic butthole and you can't live without him. When you got no reply, you crawled into bed, still wearing your stilettos and sobbed yourself to sleep. The next day, you called in sick with a hangover and spent the day wallowing in shame and looking for your wallet with one bloodshot eye. While this exact scenario is totally hypothetical and certainly not based on my own personal experience, it's probably eerily similar to your own sad Valentine's Day experiences.
By about 5pm when this hadn't happened (in fact, nothing arrived from ANYONE, not even your mother), you began to suspect that you might actually be pathetic. You decided that if your day ended with you at home alone, you would curl up and die. In a panic, you called your other single friends and made plans to go out on the town together because dammit, you are smart, independent women and you don't need a man anyways. You got all dressed up and went to the local grab-assery, where you pretended that this was the exact way you wanted to spend Valentine's Day all along. Six dry martinis later, you were sitting on a random guy's lap, telling him what a douche canoe your ex boyfriend is. Later, after a sloppy makeout session on the pool table, Random Guy got a booty call text from his ex and decided you were too sloppy to put out, so he told you he was going to the bathroom and never came back. Crestfallen and three sheets to the wind, you got a cab home alone, leaving your wallet on the floor in the back seat in a drunken stupor. At home, you conducted one last thorough inspection of the house and yard and garage to check for the secret admirer flowers that didn't come earlier. You probably twisted your ankle trying to survey the yard for presents in your high heels. When no flowers were found, you cried and looked at photos of old boyfriends and listened to Mariah Carey songs before finally drunk-texting an incoherent message to your ex to tell him that you hate him and you think he's a gigantic butthole and you can't live without him. When you got no reply, you crawled into bed, still wearing your stilettos and sobbed yourself to sleep. The next day, you called in sick with a hangover and spent the day wallowing in shame and looking for your wallet with one bloodshot eye. While this exact scenario is totally hypothetical and certainly not based on my own personal experience, it's probably eerily similar to your own sad Valentine's Day experiences.
If you AREN'T single, you may have experienced a different- albeit no less disappointing- Valentine's Day.
Your disappointment began when you woke up and your significant other was not peering at you lovingly as he slipped an important piece of jewelry onto your hand by sliding it down a pink satin ribbon tied to your finger. There was not even a tray on the dresser with blueberry pancakes and a mimosa and a love note written on truffle scented paper. You got ready for work, telling yourself you were totally not expecting confetti to pop out every time you opened a cabinet. When this did not happen, you told yourself that you didn't care if you got anything for Valentine's Day because your love is above all the "material bullshit". This was a lie. Every time a person walked into your workplace with flowers, your heart did a backflip only it landed on its face because the flowers were for that bimbo in accounting. You felt really sorry for yourself, not realizing that she either sent them to herself, or her significant other sent them to her because last Valentine's Day he forgot about her plans to make him a heart-shaped meatloaf for dinner and went to a nude love-in instead. When the day ended with no presents at your office, you decided that he must have something big up his sleeve and was surely waiting for just the right moment to give it to you. Before you walked in the door at home, you smoothed your hair, put on some lip gloss, and walked in grandly, bracing yourself for the hallelujah chorus and the blinding glare of a 19 carat diamond. Instead, you found him doing pull-ups or scratching himself while watching The Man Show. You spent the rest of the night dropping hints about your hopefulness/disappointment. After you cooked dinner and did the dishes, you found a red envelope on the counter that contained a card from him that he bought at the gas station. It said something extremely romantic like "I can't believe I'm not sick of you" or "thanks for not being a crappy cook". You pretend to be ecstatic about the gas station card and then punish him for the next six weeks by refusing to wear anything but your granny panties and a sweatsuit.
We do this to ourselves because our estrogen is hard at work, weaving beautiful delusions about diamonds and proposals and tender forehead kisses. When this happens we should remember to stop it and cowboy up because real love is not about hearts and flowers, its about finding someone you can tolerate.
Try these helpful hints to have a not so crappy Valentine's Day.......
Tips for Single Ladies
It is best to not treat this day like a holiday at all. It's just another whoop-de-doo invented by greeting card companies as a ploy to make four billion dollars from greeting card sales and gross pastel heart candies made out of Tums. You're not going to get a special delivery or a fairy tale ending because those only happen on Lifetime movies. This doesn't have to mean that your life is a turd sandwich or that no one loves you. It's just the way life is. Also, do not go home tonight and watch Lifetime movies.
Tips for Ladies with Husbands/Boyfriends
You might be under the impression that your man should already have the greatest day of your life all planned out. This is mostly to blame on David's bridal and commercials for Jared's Fine Jewelry and Katherine Heigl movies. Unless celebrating Valentine's day makes both of you feel like you're riding a unicorn to Candyland, it's ok to skip it. No one will die.
If you do decide to observe Valentine's day, here is some handy advice:
Also, men don't care if you don't get them a present for Valentine's day. They probably only got you one because they were afraid of what would happen if they didn't. As far as they are concerned, a great present is not yelling at him when he farts in bed or shutting up about the toilet seat or not telling his friends when you walk in to find him watching "Love, Actually" on TV.
Yes, your significant other loves you. No, he is not going to hire the Air Force to write a love sonnet in the sky or commission a mural of your face on the capitol building or propose on the jumbotron at a sporting event or hike to Chile to mine you a diamond out of a sacred cave. It's not that he doesn't care. It's just that he would never think of these things because his puny mind is already working overtime just to remember your middle name. Men can only think of one thing at a time and that thing is usually a sport or a beer. Their brains are not wired romantically. If we get mad at them because our lofty Valentine's expectations go unmet, they will look at us the same way a dog might look at you after you rub his nose in week-old carpet poo. And just so you know, this same look will result if you say something brilliant to him, like "I want you to want to go to the ballet with me." Just stop it with that crap already.
I hope these handy tips will help you ladies to have a less depressing holiday than last year.
Stay tuned for my next "How-To" post entitled "How to Become a Cross Country Skier"..........
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