Valentine?s Day: Is it a blessing or a curse?

By Malu Fernandez

Valentine?s Day frenzy is threatening to take over the city?with adverts and marketing promos all over town one can?t help but get carried away by the festivities. Valentine?s Day in Manila is one of the most celebrated holidays, aside from Christmas and religious holidays. This may be due to the fact that Filipinos are romantics at heart. Just listen to all our sappy Tagalog love songs whose sentiments are somehow less heartfelt when sung in English. Yes folks, we need to admit that we are sappy romantic people at heart.

That being said, it has always been my belief that when one loves a person, every day with that person should be special. Flowers and special gifts should be given all year round, not just on Valentine?s Day. Perhaps I am a bit idealistic but I guess when mundane tasks take over, we tend to forget the little things we need to do to brighten up the love of our lives. You know what I mean?office deadlines, screaming kids, stress from work or just your plain everyday tasks. Who in their right mind can think of romance when you are worried about mortgage payments or dealing with a difficult child? Then a special holiday like Valentine?s Day comes along which, in our minds, enables us to make up for all the romantic gestures and behavior we failed to remember because we are hampered by our everyday lives.

As Valentine?s Day looms over the horizon, the pressure for us to be idealistically romantic is so huge it becomes a burden. Just look around you, the traffic during Valentine?s Day becomes crazy. The hotels, restaurants and musical theater acts are fully booked to a point where the whole city takes a page from the Vegas strip. For those with a smaller budget, the movie theaters, mall restaurants and hourly motel rooms are booked as well. This town just goes crazy when V-day hits. Women are running around trying to look their best for their idea of a perfect date. Good luck to you if you?re trying to book a salon appointment on the day itself. Men in turn are true to their nature. Most of them are usually scrounging around at the last minute to buy a bouquet of flowers and some kind of trinket to show how much they love their partners. Basically it just gets hectic and we are burdened with the additional pressure to give and receive material gifts and emotional displays of love to celebrate one day of love.

If you think about it, with all that running around, most of us don?t really get to enjoy the day because there are too much romantic expectations for one night. Whereas if we really took a certain amount of time each day to keep romance in our lives then most of us wouldn?t have all that notion of romance bottled up in one night. Don?t you think? One misconception men have is that love can be measured by how much money they spend on a gift. Ladies beware! Some husbands or boyfriends compensate for their sins by buying you expensive jewellery. Depending on what his digressions may be, it?s up to you whether you can be bribed or not.

What I?m trying to say is that if we are consistently romantic the whole year then we wouldn?t be so stressed by what we need to do on V-day. It wouldn?t be a holiday forced upon couples to be romantic. We won?t have to buy into the commercialization of it all. Being romantic all year round doesn?t mean spending a ton of money each time you feel like romancing your mate. Simple things like placing romantic or funny notes where your partner will find it is a nice gesture?a little post it note tucked in his briefcase or a card tucked away in her makeup bureau is a nice romantic surprise. A funny gift like a Coke in can with a ribbon which may not mean anything to anyone but may have significant meaning to both of you. Small gestures can go a long way. So much so that when V-day comes along, the pressure won?t be such a burden because you and your partner don?t have to make up for anything because it won?t be a contrived celebration of love by having dinner and watching musical theater. It will simply be a culmination of all the romantic things you and your partner have done all year round. So think about it and ask yourself how romantic you really are? Do you do romantic things all year round or simply make up for it one day a year?