Valentine's Day Revisited

I admit that I have sorely neglected this blog for a long time. I really was in love with that last entry and didn't want to put something on top of it. It was my blogging masterpiece.

Actually, if it's the truth you're after, I sort of just forgot to blog and was going through some very difficult times in my life, what with the ending of a 12 year relationship, the perpetual struggle for gainful yet meaningful employment, and family issues. I know, poor me. I'm going to call up the kids working at Foxconn in China and tell them all about my troubles.

So I'd been meaning to get back on the blogging horse, as it were, and today seems like as good a day as any. It's Valentine's Day again. Remember that cute entry I made a few years ago on this day? I was so excited to surprise my lady with all the accoutrements related to the made-up holiday that I was beaming. Really. I'm sure you could see it when you read the post. I happily hid flowers and balloons and other paraphernalia around our tiny house and didn't even get laid afterward.

Well, the past is the past, dear reader, and I know this is going to sound a little jaded, but honestly, fuck Valentine's Day. As if, as a single man in my early thirties, I didn't already have enough reminders that I am alone. The two cats and the empty bed at night do that job just fine. I don't need some asshole trying to sell me roses when I get off of the train to be reminded that I might as well go out and buy a copy of Microwave Cooking for One.

The dating world is not as I left it back in the early aughts. I suppose that may be because my main criteria for a good night aren't what they used to be. I'm not hitting the meat market bars anymore looking for love. At my age, that would be creepy and unethical. What kind of a girl am I going to find in a bar? A girl who goes home with guys from bars, that's who. No thanks.

So, I started internet dating. This really has its ups and downs. More downs than ups, really, but hey, it's still better than a bar and is relatively safer. You can find out all about your compatibility with someone before meeting them. That takes a lot of the awkwardness out of the situation. However, some girls will simply not hesitate to lead you on for a while, take your heart out, play with it for a bit, and then decide they like somebody else's heart better. One that lives a little closer to home for them. And sometimes they play with that heart, and then come back and play with yours the next night and then you have to go get your heart tested to make sure it didn't catch anything.

So, if you've got someone and you're extremely happy this Valentine's Day, that's great. I'm real proud of you. But please, and this includes my entry from 2009, please do everybody else a favor and keep it to yourself. Those of us who are single just barely made it through the holidays without killing ourselves, and we wouldn't mind being able to find a table at a restaurant tonight. Single people need to eat, too. Think of the starving singles, you selfish bastards.

I do still think that if we're going to have a made-up holiday, it should be moved to a warmer time of year. At least then there would be a little buffer between the soul-crushing holidays and being flogged by the flail of loneliness on February 14th.

Paco