Can’t buy her love
Self-proclaimed ‘softie’ says affection is more than a Valentine’s Day card
Marlo Campbell

It’s mid-February — and Hallmark stores everywhere are quivering with anticipation.

Valentine’s Day is a corporate holiday. Love is co-opted and sold back to us in cards, flowers, chocolates and, strangely, in little stuffed bunny rabbits.

Apparently the way to love a woman is to treat her like an infant.

Despite my ice-cold-bitch persona, I’m actually a big softie when it comes to girly, emotional stuff. I like getting flowers. I appreciate thoughtful, romantic gestures. I still get teary when I watch John Cusak hold the ghetto blaster over his head and blare Peter Gabriel in Say Anything.

That’s why Valentine’s Day makes me conflicted. Materialism is seductive. We’re taught to define ourselves through what we own and express ourselves through what we buy. Hence the problem — love is a big feeling, and we’ve been manipulated into thinking that a big feeling needs a big gift or else it’s somehow less real. In our hyper-materialistic reality, romance has become a marketable commodity. Case in point: weddings.

This Valentine’s Day, I guarantee that some couple vacationing in Vegas (probably drunk) will impulsively decide to get married.

And what’s wrong with that, you ask? Socially sanctioned behavior is predictable and boring.

Also, marriages are less about love and commitment and more about social acceptance, public validation and an excuse to show off by throwing a lavish wedding.

Love has been commandeered by showbiz.

I understand the allure. Women have been conditioned to feel incomplete without a man at our side and a ring on our finger. We’re encouraged by the wedding industry to be wildly frivolous when we get married, to express our love with glitz and spectacle. It’s payback for fulfilling our societal obligation.

You get to splurge on individual bubble-blowers and high-end catering and string quartets or, if you’re more of a traditionalist, on little mints wrapped in tulle (two points for any straight guy who knows what tulle is). Other fringe benefits — you get to cry in public and get drunk without judgement. People you haven’t spoken to in years buy you presents and give you money. And, of course, you get to wear a dress that conceivably costs more than I spent on my car.

For one day, you’re a celebrity — the centre of attention, the envy of all, never mind that half of all marriages now end in divorce (a fact that makes it hard for us guests not to snicker during the ‘for as long as you both shall live’ part of the ceremony).

Commitment is a state of mind. Do we really need 17 bridesmaids and free liquor for 400 people (including that uncle who we’ve always found a bit creepy but had to invite because he’s family) to prove that we’re in love?

I propose a radical idea: Let’s collectively decide to be romantic whenever we want, not just on Valentine’s Day.

Let’s keep our Visa cards in our wallets. Let’s cook dinner and clean the bathroom without being asked and finally crack open that jar of chocolate body paint. Let’s write love letters and give hour-long back rubs and serenade each other.

Love is action, not a card from Hallmark.