It's not all about you

St. Valentine's Day is fast approaching.  With it, come the questions from people with a sense of entitlement.  He had better get me better flowers than the rest of the girls in the office get.  I had better get a ring from a man that I see once a month for sex.  One woman in my office got a 3 pound box of Godiva chocolates, why hasn't he sent me a bigger box?  The list of what he needs to do goes on.

Ladies, I have news for you.  It is not all about you.  It is about him too.  St. Valentine's Day isn't about what you get, but it is about the love you give.  So, as you become self-obsessed and feel a sense of entitlement because you think it's all about you, you lose your perspective.  Without that perspective, he's going to go find someone who is far more giving and loving and doesn't just view him as a means to an end.

Yes, I am a bit cynical.  In my experience, St. Valentine's Day is the one day of the year where couples who haven't gotten along in forever try to be nice to each other.  It is also the day of the year that women who watch too many chick flicks, not to mention the Hallmark and jewelry store commercials feel if they're not getting the biggest bouquet delivered to them in the office, they are complete failures in life.  So what the biggest gift delivered to the office went to a woman who is married to a man who is upper-middle management in his company, while your boyfriend is still an apprentice electrician, who still has a year or two to go before becoming a journeyman?  You still deserve the best present in the office, to show you have the best boyfriend, right?  Um, no, you don't.

I know this is hard for some of the fluffier of you to grasp.  The fact that it is not all about you, that you don't deserve to be queen of the day, unless you're willing to make your man king for the day too.  It is not about self obsession.  It is about being a couple and showing love for each other.

If you equate love with material goods, you need an attitude adjustment right now.  If you can't get past your materialistic nature and how it's all about you, then you need to move on from the relationship and find someone just as self obsessed as you are.  See how much you like dealing with your own mirror image.

I know I sound like a broken record, but Valentine's  Day is supposed to be about each other.  Do you understand that?  It isn't just about you, it is about your partner too.  So while you are obsessing over how he isn't buying you the right things and gearing up for a fight, what are you doing for him?  Getting him some girly stuffed animal that he's going to have to hide from his friends, lest he have to be called a pussy for months?  A bottle of booze, that you will share with him, so you can try to pry a ring from him?  Or how about just a DVD from the $5 bin at Wal*Mart?  He's a man, that's all he deserves, right?

Instead of being hung up on the material, how about just enjoying the day and evening without fighting with him?  Swallowing your pride and anger when he doesn't propose and just enjoying being with him?  Do you want to be with him, or do you just want to be able to show your girlfriends the rock he bought you?  Is it him you're in love with, or the idea of just being with anyone?  Are you even capable of enjoying the moment?  Or is the moment a means to an end?

Mutual respect should be the phrase of the day.  So what if you didn't get three dozen roses dyed to match your outfit of the day?  If style over substance means so much to you, get out of the relationship now.  You don't love him, you are in love with yourself.  It will never work, as he is competing with your feelings for you.

If you're a woman who isn't in a relationship, don't let the commercialism get to you.  Don't do the stupid things women have been known to do, such as ordering flowers and chocolates for yourself.  You will get found out 9 times out of 10.  Then you will be the laughing stock of the office.  Besides, if the snarky women who are all about showing off get on your back, tell them the truth about the day...

How many of you even know who Saint Valentine was?  All those cute little Cupid cards that go around, well, those are actually Pagan in nature.  Cupid was not a little baby cherub, but the Roman god of lust.  Come to think of it, if you read the Bible, cherubs aren't cute little baby angels, but really vile creatures with flaming swords to cut down anyone who gets near the Garden.

But I am off track.  Oh yes, Saint Valentine.  Of which, there are over a dozen martyred saints with that name and the story gets very muddled.  But here is the rundown.

He was either a priest or a bishop in Italy, or a missionary in Africa.  No one is quite sure.  He is said to have been a virgin.  The story goes, he was arrested for helping Christians and performing weddings for Christians during the reign of Claudius II.  He didn't renounce his faith.  The Emperor liked him, it is said, until Valentine tried to convert him to Christianity, which was illegal at the time.  As a result, he was tortured and executed by beheading on February 14, maybe somewhere around 270 C.E.  Yet he wasn't mentioned in the first compendium of martyrs in 354 C.E.  Pope Gelasius made him a martyr in 496 C.E.  His feast day was the day of his execution, February 14.

Somewhere along the way, he became the patron saint of happy marriages.  Along with beekeepers and epileptics.  Not to mention travelers and the plague.  Because we all know how romantic the idea an epileptic transient beekeeper with the plague can be.

Saints are supposed to perform miracles.  The only miracle attributed to Valentine was an anecdote about how he supposedly restored the sight of the jailer's daughter.  There is no recorded evidence of this though.  However, back in the old days of the Church, martyrdom in the name of Christ was a free pass to sainthood.  Which is probably why Valentine, along with a number of other martyrs, had his feast day removed from the Church by Pope Paul VI, under his Mysterii Paschalis.  Ironically, the letter was issued on, February 14, 1969.  But don't feel too bad for Valentine, it was the same proclamation that removed Saint Christopher from the Catholic Calendar, too.

Chances are, he wasn't real, but Pope Gelasius made him up to replace the pagan festival of  Lupercalia, a three day festival of cleansing and fertility.  By the time Pope Gelasius became Pope, it had degraded into a drunken naked festival.  So what better way to replace the festival, than to create a martyred saint who's feast day is right smack dab in the middle of Lupercalia?

So, getting back on point, you ladies are getting your noses all out of joint over a day that isn't even on the calendar of Saints anymore.  Over a virgin that was beheaded and whose life details are more than a bit sketchy.  This doesn't mean he's still not a saint.  It just means that his life really can't be verified and any official veneration in the Church takes place on All Saints Day.  But he was a virgin priest, if he existed at all.  Yeah, that's real sexy.

If you want to do Saint Valentine's Day right, go to a chocolatier.  Get him or her to create a chocolate saint filled with raspberry or strawberry goo.  So when his head is removed, he bleeds properly.  He should also come in an appropriate coffin.  Also made of chocolate, of course.  Come to think of it, if your boyfriend is a horror movie fan, this would be the best Valentine's Day gift you could get him.  So if you're calling me morbid, you are missing the entire point.  Which is, it is not all about you and what you want.  It is also what your partner wants.  Which just might be a two person drunken, naked festival.