Hearts of Stone

Barbara Anderson is guest blogging today.

Being single on Valentine’s Day is like being a Muslim at Christmas. It has nothing to do with you, but you can’t get away from it. It’s everywhere—in the grocery store, the jewelry store, the gift shop, the stationers’, the record shop, the book store, the garden shop, the drug store, the department store, every mall and shopping center and AM-PM Mini Mart and fast food stop and restaurant (“Make your reservations now for our special Valentine’s Day Aphrodisiac Dinner! Just $50 for two!”); today in the mail there was an offer from the local windshield replacement company: Have your windshield replaced before February 15th and get a box of See’s chocolates for your valentine. Between the end of the Christmas frenzy and Feb. 14th, there’s more red and white in the stores than the Cohen brothers ever thought of putting in “Fargo.”

As a single person, I ask you: is this fair? Is this right? In this enlightened day and age, when we have rules and regulations in place to ensure no one is discriminated against because of race, religion, physical condition, gender or veteran status, here we have what’s become a virtual national holiday, with merchants crowing about their Valentine specials, and bed-and-breakfast owners falling all over themselves to offer romantic getaways to love-besotted couples. I’m here to tell you that I want equal treatment. I want special offers of glorious weekends alone in some georgeous hideway on the coast, with a four-poster bed and a down comforter and scones and tea by the fireplace in the late afternoon as I sit and watch the surf break on the rocks below. I want restaurateurs courting me with lovely meals served at a linen-covered table, fresh flowers and complimentary wine, and no pitying or condescending looks because I’m there by myself.

What’s the big deal about being a couple, anyway? I’ll bet most of those couples wish Valentine’s Day would go away, too: the men usually clueless as to what to give their wives or girlfriends, the women marshalling all their feelings to the fore, ready to have them be hurt again this year when he gives her carnations and she wanted roses, or chocolates when he knows she’s trying to lose 10 pounds before summer gets here. What a dope. And then there’s all that unfulfilled expectation of the romantic weekend or the intimate dinner that the newspapers and magazines and TV news have been flogging for weeks. Like Christmas, nothing can live up to the hype. I usually spend Valentine’s Day reviewing my list of reasons singlehood is enjoyable:

• No matter what time I go to bed, no one cares
• I can eat baked potatoes every night for two weeks running and nobody says, “Baked potatoes AGAIN?”
• No listening to someone else complain about their boss
• I always get to drive
• No “what do you want to do?” “I don’t care; what do you want to do?” “I dunno.”
• Full and immediate access to the bathroom, 24 hours a day
• Never having to say I’m sorry for leaving the kitchen/bathroom/car in a mess
• No interminable weekends visiting someone else’s ghastly Aunt Josephine
• Pizza and a video—my choice, both—on Friday nights

So go ahead: While you coupled-up types are spending 45 minutes at the Hallmark rack debating funny-vs.-mushy-vs.-sincere and hoping against hope that you haven’t waited too long to order those long-stemmed red roses and make that dinner reservation at that trendy and overcrowded restaurant, I’ll just be settling back with the remote in one hand and that first slice of Greek pizza in the other, ready for a satisfying evening watching Nicholas Cage persuade Cher to dump his dopey brother and marry him. Now there’s somebody worth giving up my Friday nights for.