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Feb. 14th, 2003 04:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hnpccSo we're ignoring Valentine's Day (again).
I have to admit it's never really been an issue for me - it only really became big about a decade ago and so it doesn't impact on my consciousness that much. But then again I'm fairly casual about most anniversaries - I've managed to forget everyone's birthday at least once, including my own (I had assignments due and I wasn't quite sure what day it was). I can't actually remember Dean and my "anniversary" - although I know it's somewhere near Easter, which is a bit of a help.
It surprised me listening to people I worked with going on and on about Valentine's Day though - usually these were early 20s women who were obsessed by the whole idea. They were going to get really upset if their boyfriends forgot. They wanted grand romantic gestures. It would prove they were loved.
They definitely weren't going out and doing their own grand romantic gestures for their boyfriends though.
They reminded me of my sister, who is still obsessing over getting me married so she can be a bridesmaid. Fortunately she's stopped buying bridal magazines for me though, it was getting hard to explain to casual visitors why they were there. Especially visitors that don't know my sister!
Maybe I just don't get the whole romance thing. Titanic didn't do a lot for me - I found the "love story" tacked on and kind of boring, and I spent large tracts of the movie barracking for Leonardo to die. I did find some of the side vignettes moving, but not as much as the real life story of the guy who told his newlywed wife that "he'd be with her shortly" as he put her into the lifeboat.
Romance is an ideal, which I can't see that real life is ever going to live up to. Love, on the other hand, is part of the real world. People hang in for each other when horrible things happen. People sacrifice themselves for one another in interesting times. People clean cat vomit off their loved ones boots (OK, guess which one Dean's done for me recently! ;-))
Love I can deal with. Romance - take it or leave it. :-)
I have to admit it's never really been an issue for me - it only really became big about a decade ago and so it doesn't impact on my consciousness that much. But then again I'm fairly casual about most anniversaries - I've managed to forget everyone's birthday at least once, including my own (I had assignments due and I wasn't quite sure what day it was). I can't actually remember Dean and my "anniversary" - although I know it's somewhere near Easter, which is a bit of a help.
It surprised me listening to people I worked with going on and on about Valentine's Day though - usually these were early 20s women who were obsessed by the whole idea. They were going to get really upset if their boyfriends forgot. They wanted grand romantic gestures. It would prove they were loved.
They definitely weren't going out and doing their own grand romantic gestures for their boyfriends though.
They reminded me of my sister, who is still obsessing over getting me married so she can be a bridesmaid. Fortunately she's stopped buying bridal magazines for me though, it was getting hard to explain to casual visitors why they were there. Especially visitors that don't know my sister!
Maybe I just don't get the whole romance thing. Titanic didn't do a lot for me - I found the "love story" tacked on and kind of boring, and I spent large tracts of the movie barracking for Leonardo to die. I did find some of the side vignettes moving, but not as much as the real life story of the guy who told his newlywed wife that "he'd be with her shortly" as he put her into the lifeboat.
Romance is an ideal, which I can't see that real life is ever going to live up to. Love, on the other hand, is part of the real world. People hang in for each other when horrible things happen. People sacrifice themselves for one another in interesting times. People clean cat vomit off their loved ones boots (OK, guess which one Dean's done for me recently! ;-))
Love I can deal with. Romance - take it or leave it. :-)
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no subject
Date: 2003-02-14 04:20 am (UTC)I know lots of my friends (and indeed my parents) disagree, and if it works for them that's all fine and I'm not about to suggest they shouldn't develop and indulge whatever personal traditions they want to. But it's getting bigger and bigger here for the retail industry, and it makes rather too many people obsessive or unhappy or both.
Still, if it means that the bottle shop might have a special offer on fizzy wine when I go past on the way home tonight, I guess it's not all bad...
no subject
Date: 2003-02-17 11:20 am (UTC)What a great way to look at it.