A Cynical Romantic
Valentine’s Day is here. In our house, however, it hasn’t been celebrated for 9 years, because my daughter, Meg, was born on this day, 8 years ago. Half an hour earlier and she’d have been a child of Friday 13th, but she hung on to make it in to Valentine’s Day. A true wee child of love.
To be honest, I’ve always struggled with the concept of the day anyway. About 10 or 11 years back, one of my stepdaughters had a magazine with one of these “How Romantic Are You?” quizzes in it, so as a bit of family fun we all did it.
It was one of these where if you answered mainly ‘A’s then you were a true romantic, in fact so bloody soppy that you really needed a bit of a reality check; mostly ‘B’s and you were pretty much normal; and ‘C’s meant you were a hard-hearted cynic of monstrous proportions.
What seemed initially odd, was that all my answers were split between ‘A’s and ‘C’s. I didn’t have a single ‘B’ on my score sheet.
I had to think about it for a while, but it did kind of make sense. On one level I am incredibly romantic, but I think all this “show your love with a card with a heart on it, or a single rose” is a complete load of bollocks.
I love my wife passionately. I will take her to dinner at any opportunity, I will buy her flowers, and I tell her how much I love her every day. But I don’t need some crass money-making commercial machine to allow me to express my feelings to her. I much prefer the fact that Valentine’s Day is now forever associated with my beautiful daughter rather than money-grabbing opportunism of the most contemptuous kind.
So yes, I am a cynical romantic, or a romantic cynic. Take your pick.
To be honest, I’ve always struggled with the concept of the day anyway. About 10 or 11 years back, one of my stepdaughters had a magazine with one of these “How Romantic Are You?” quizzes in it, so as a bit of family fun we all did it.
It was one of these where if you answered mainly ‘A’s then you were a true romantic, in fact so bloody soppy that you really needed a bit of a reality check; mostly ‘B’s and you were pretty much normal; and ‘C’s meant you were a hard-hearted cynic of monstrous proportions.
What seemed initially odd, was that all my answers were split between ‘A’s and ‘C’s. I didn’t have a single ‘B’ on my score sheet.
I had to think about it for a while, but it did kind of make sense. On one level I am incredibly romantic, but I think all this “show your love with a card with a heart on it, or a single rose” is a complete load of bollocks.
I love my wife passionately. I will take her to dinner at any opportunity, I will buy her flowers, and I tell her how much I love her every day. But I don’t need some crass money-making commercial machine to allow me to express my feelings to her. I much prefer the fact that Valentine’s Day is now forever associated with my beautiful daughter rather than money-grabbing opportunism of the most contemptuous kind.
So yes, I am a cynical romantic, or a romantic cynic. Take your pick.
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