Every Sunday I buy the New York Times and, as often as we're able, Lia and I do the crossword puzzle together over Skype. It's a great opportunity for me to keep in touch with one of my favorite people in the world, plus it's helpful because we tend to get stumped over different clues. But I also like having the Sunday Times because I love reading the Book Review. On Sunday nights, I sit in bed with it and add books to my reading list. It's one of my favorite parts of the week. Last night, as I was finishing The Good Lord Bird (so so so good, everybody should read it), and about to go to my reading list to cross it off, I remembered that I hadn't read the Book Review yet (Lia and I didn't do the crossword puzzle on Sunday because she had been traveling, which threw my schedule off). I grabbed the Times from my chair in the living room, opened it up to the Book Review, and to my dismay, the whole damn thing was about love stories. In fairness to the New York Times, some of the stories were about divorces and heartbreak and misery, etc., but as I flipped through it, all I could process were the red, pink and purple cartoons of men and women holding hands, the gimmicky red lettering, the pictures of hearts.
I don't have a problem with people being in love -- it's great, good for you. I'm happy when my friends are in relationships that make them happy. That being said, do you people need a holiday celebrating how happy you are? Do you know how Valentine's Day started? It's a celebration of martyrdom, and not just one guy named Valentine who was martyred, but a whole bunch. I know none of these holidays make sense, but it's like, let's all go on dates in honor of these people who were tortured and killed for their beliefs. I hope I'm not just being reflexively bitter about this, and I'd like for you to humor me that I'm not for a moment here. There are lots of places where I expect to be told that I ought to have a boyfriend, and so when I see a Gillette ad that not only assumes that, because I'm a woman I must have a boyfriend, but also that I like him twice as much as my girlfriends but only half as much as my razor (assuming I interpreted that graphic correctly), I don't bat an eye. Moreover, this year Netflix has made it, dare I say desirable, to be single on Valentine's Day, because I don't imagine both partners of every couple would be happy staying in to binge-watch all of the second season of "House of Cards" (although if your SO won't do that, it might be time for you to move on, just saying).
I usually don't get upset about Valentine's Day. I mean, a lot of my friends are single, there's no one here I really want to be dating, and I couldn't eat a box of assorted chocolates if someone bought them for me. That being said, I would like to be in a relationship, and it's hard to be in that position in a state where, somehow, everyone is married by the time they turn 22. It also might have something to do with the fact that three couples I'm connected to in various ways on Facebook got engaged over the weekend. But I think I'm going to lay most of the blame for this one at the feet of the New York Times Sunday Book Review, which is one of the only things in the world that I expect to only let me escape what I am and where I am, and not to be another reminder that there are reasons I want that escape.
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