Valentine’s Day: you can’t avoid it. Wherever you go— to your local supermarket or favourite coffee shop or, heck, even to the Uber eats website— you’re bombarded with love hearts, frills, and 2-for-1 offers.
I’ll leave the frills, thanks… but, by all means, give me the RUBBEDRAW4VDAY discount for Lovehoney.
If, like me, you’ve spent most of your Valentine’s Days replacing the V for G(etting hammered with your pals and ending the night with a hot bath and a trusty wank over McDreamy), you’re probably familiar with the concept of “bros before hoes”. Chicks before dicks. Fannies before mannies. And, my all-time favourite, thongs before dongs.
Yes, well-spotted: each of these expressions is referring to Girl Code, as in, the unspoken “code” between women that your friends come before any possible suitor (men having something similar called Bro Code that involves regularly trying to touch one another’s crotches but never sharing the same bed at a sleepover…very strange).
Affiliated with Girl Code is Galentine’s Day (and it’s gender-neutral term Palentine’s Day), a fairly new concept, heralded by the single pringles in spite of those who are already mid-mingle. Mingle, what an awful word. Whoever woke up one day and decided that “mingle” would become synonymous for “I’m ready to be penetrated”?! Awful, just plain awful.
Anyway, for someone who has proudly donned the Galentine’s Day sash for many, many moons, I’m vaguely aware that, this year, I must exchange my glorious sash for a new and shiny badge… an “I’m in a relationship and must, therefore, play along with this unimaginative, consumer-driven and totally arbitrary, manipulative and shallow tradition that contributes to capitalist gain” badge. Otherwise known as “Sorry, gals, I’m busy”.
Fortunately, I don’t feel as guilty* about doing this as I probably would’ve been, had the government rules allowed us to do anything but staying in and ordering a takeout (albeit with candles and a nice dessert afterwards!).
National lockdown, as frustrating (and necessary!) as it is, means that I can switch the single sash for the “I have a boyfriend” badge and pick my partner over my pals without so much as a “we’ll do the Zoom quiz next week— promise!”.
*One shouldn’t feel guilty for putting their relationship before their friendships, at least not all the time, I’ve just never been one of “those girls” #PerpetuallySingleByChoice
SO, with this new concept of February 14th in mind, I set out to educate myself on what “typical couples” do on the Day of Love.
Romantic™ bike rides along the canal, then a couple’s pottery class followed by eating spaghetti Lady & The Tramp style at a fancy-schmancy restaurant, before ending the night bathing in rose petals and watching Casablanca on Amazon Prime?
Sorry, babe, not for me.
…
Well, maybe the bath.
…
Actually, scrap that, how about you just deliver the pasta to me in the bath and make yourself scarce? You can choose what film we watch tonight?
…
See.
Compromise.
SO, if, like me, 2020 was the year of a personality transplant and you suddenly find yourself in a relationship or you can’t quite shake your holidate or, heck, you’re popping your glorious sash-donning cherry, this blog post is for you!
Topics include, but are not limited to: McDreamy, good vibes, V-day pie charts, and Things that Make Me Moist.