Consider Valentine’s Day and you are flooded with images of wining and dining, fresh flowers, lingering glances across a candlelit table, cherubs with wings and bows and arrows… Now consider a long term relationship; wining and dining has been replaced by a shared Chinese take away, in your pjs in front of Corrie. So how do you reconcile the two?
In the first flushes of romance, V-Day is the perfect opportunity to woo a potential partner, after all who wouldn’t be swooning after a three course meal with ‘The way you look tonight’ playing in the background? However, after several years with your partner Valentine’s becomes a day crammed with many potential relationship landmines. For instance; book a table at a restaurant and you are instantly infuriated at the extortionate cost (any other meal costs a fraction of the price of a V-Day feast, when greedy establishments often only offer a set menu) and plonked in the middle of what my boyfriend eloquently described as ‘cheesy dates touching noses over the table’. However, risk ignoring the big pink day and you can find yourself pining away for the good old romantic days of yester year and feeling decidedly miserable.
I think the way forward is to eschew the clichés and instead of celebrating Valentine’s Day, celebrate your relationship. Instead of sending your girlfriend the done-to-death dozen roses, send her favourite flowers with a hand written note- it’s much more personal and will demonstrate just how well you know each other. Why not avoid emptying your bank account in a restaurant and instead recreate your favourite date, be it a picnic or simply a marathon of your favourite films together. After all, why buy into the commerciality of V-Day when you get to tell that special someone how you feel about them every other day of the year too. So dig deep through your memories and make a day that it true to the both of you and your time together.
It may be becoming apparent through my words that I have an extremely over-active cringe mechanism and that public displays of affection for the sake of the 14th of February give me the heebie jeebies. If you, dear reader, are horrified by my flippant attitude towards this lovely holiday then please- book yourself in at Casa de Love and enjoy your red bouquet. However, I hope that when the 14th rolls around my boy and I will be in our pjs watching a Lord of the Rings marathon…
