Ambiguity about relationships, failure to take love seriously have made Valentine’s Day lose meaning
By Roy Hu
Feb. 14, 2011 2:53 a.m.
Last week, I was chatting with my pretty friend from Santa Barbara, who, as usual, was being wooed by several boys.
Like good relativist college kids, we fumbled with loaded questions such as “Are you dating?” or “Do you like him?” or the real bomb, “Are you in a relationship?” Words, words and words.
In the end, we settled that she “sort of liked” one of the boys and that they were “kind of a thing.” If that made any sense to you, more power to you.
But to me, the only clear thing about the ambiguity is that many of us have stripped the meaning of some of the most complex words, such as love and relationship, to their lowest common denominator.
It is so much easier to keep from making a strong statement about love, because by saying something meaningful, you leave it out there for people to interpret, judge or examine.
But taking love lightly means taking people lightly. By making a paltry definition of love, we have become a paltry people.
Instead of taking love seriously on Valentine’s Day, we leave it nebulous because we’re afraid that it means more than Valentine’s Day cards, more than v-cards.
For most college kids, we act like Valentine’s Day means nothing. Many of us probably already defined it over the weekend as a synonym for the almighty word everyone agrees on: P-p-party.
We might have lost Valentine’s Day somewhere amidst the more important holidays to celebrate. For guys, Valentine’s Day comes too soon after the real, unambiguous mega-holiday in February: Super Bowl Weekend.
Or maybe we feel society has cheapened it. Without skipping a heartbeat, our stores and movies try to sell you what they believe love really means, so long as you have the means to afford it.
I used to have a love-hate relationship with Valentine’s Day. That is, I loved to hate it. I thought it was a cheap ploy for blood money by greedy capitalists. I hated it because for some cosmic reason, I always do better, relationship-wise, in the fall.
And somehow, in the midst of my annual winter of discontent, I always end up spending Valentine’s Day pretending that it wasn’t. But I think part of me wanted the holiday to be devoid of meaning probably because if it wasn’t, then, well, that would just be too real.
But is there another holiday more wanting of meaning? I suppose Jesus could give him a run for his money, but poor St. Valentine, I’d imagine, annually turns over in his grave somewhere under Rome.
That’s unfortunate because historically, the legend of St. Valentine was all about love. During the third century, Emperor Claudius II made marriage illegal so that young men could better serve in the military.
Valentine, surely some previous incarnation of Gavin Newsom, disagreed and took it upon himself to perform illegal marriages. He was imprisoned and eventually fell in love with the jailer’s daughter.
Before being killed, he left her a card signed, “from your Valentine.”
In three simple yet lasting final words, Valentine said everything we fear to say.
What does “relationship” mean to you? E-mail Hu at [email protected].
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