quote:Originally posted by Uprooted: I want heart-shaped eggplant parmesan!
Okay--I want any kind of eggplant parmesan. However, I just had dinner, so I will supress the urge to run down to my local pizzeria w/ the yummy eggplant parmesan.
I know. And I make AWESOME eggplant parmesan, too. Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
I like the quesedilla idea... I think maybe once I have kids or something this is a holiday I could get more into... Then again, I think with kids around (even my neices and nephews) EVERY holiday is more fun... ; )
Posts: 1355 | Registered: Jul 2006
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My Valentine's Day gift was a grand success, and it only cost about $5.
I also blatently stole the idea from a friend. I'm a sharing guy, so I figured I'd upload it to this P2P network so that others can benefit from it next year:
I bought a bag of Hershey's Kisses. I wrapped up a bunch of little bunches of them (5 or 6) in tissue paper with a ribbon, and attached a note on each one which was a rememberence of something we've shared together. Some were blatantly romantic, but most weren't. Last night after she went to bed, I hid them throughout the house.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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My Valentine got a Nintendo DS. I got a damn nice silk tie.
When I get off work...picnic time! Thank you, Seattle, for recently having bearable weather!
Edited to point out: Ties are actually not a brand-X gift for me. I love ties, because I really like wearing suits, but because I have fewer and fewer occasions to wear them these days, I always stop myself from spending the ridiculous amounts of money that nice ties and decent suits costs.
Posts: 4313 | Registered: Sep 2004
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It is proved again that I am the selfish one in the relationship. I don't really give a hoot about Valentine's Day, kept forgetting that it was coming (even though I was participating in this thread!), and when I finally remembered and thought of a cool gift it was too late to get it in time. And Bob hasn't been able to leave the house for a week because of minor surgery, so I told him all I wanted for Valentine's Day was a big smooch and I'd give him the same.
And he surprised me this morning with a chocolate pecan carmel apple and Trauma Center: Second Opinion for the Wii, which he had John's nanny pick up on her way home on Monday and bring in yesterday.
Fortunately, he doesn't seem to care that I suck at the whole "remembering to get gifts on time" thing, so we're all happy.
Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
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I've been thinking a lot about katharina and Squicky's argument. While it did get out of hand, the principles do apply to Jon Boy and me (I like V-Day and think it's fun to have a day for romance; Jon Boy feels like it's a fake holiday where people are just expected to spend money in order to not get in trouble with their honey).
The conclusion I've come to in the past two days is that I think katharina is right on this one (mostly). I think in a relationship, it's important to love your significant other as much as you know how to, and further, to love them in the ways that make them feel loved. This goes back to the Five Love Languages. But in a healthy relationship, the lovin' goes both ways. If Valentine's Day observations make your honey feel loved, who are you to withhold that from him/her? Hopefully your sweetheart would reciprocate by loving you in the ways you want to be loved too.
Obviously, if Valentine's Day (or any other way of expressing love) makes you really uncomfortable for a good reason, you should talk to your SO about it and come up with other ways you can express your love. Thinking the holiday is cheap and commercial doesn't count as a good reason in my book, though.
The same principle goes for sex. If one partner thinks something is a turn on, the other partner would do well to do it at least sometimes, even if he or she gets nothing out of it. If both partners give freely most of the time, neither will feel unloved.
Posts: 1903 | Registered: Sep 2003
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quote:If Valentine's Day observations make your honey feel loved, who are you to withhold that from him/her?
Again, what about the other side? If you requiring them to celebrate a holiday that they have a serious problem with makes them feel unloved or not respected, who are you to do this to them?
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: If you requiring them to celebrate a holiday that they have a serious problem with makes them feel unloved or not respected...
I have a hard time believing that many people feel so strongly about a non-action -- that is, the non-celebration of a particular holiday -- that they would feel unloved if their significant other says "Can we please celebrate it? I really like it."
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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Please spare a thought for my lovely fiance, who instead of spending this Valentine's Day with me is still stuck at work at gone 7pm. We weren't going to do anything special, just have dinner here and sort out wedding stuff, but I am rather missing him. It's a good thing we celebrated "proposal day" yesterday (he proposed a year ago). I like that as an alternative to v-day - you don't have to spend twice as much if you want to eat out, for a start!
Posts: 1550 | Registered: Jun 1999
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twinky, It's not a matter of the loved one saying "Can we celebrate this." but rather dismissing your feelings as to not wanting to celebrate it ("Thinking the holiday is cheap and commercial doesn't count as a good reason in my book, though.") and seeing you as self-centered if you don't do what they want that would make me feel unloved.
posted
I can easily see people -- let's be honest, men, because men are the ones who are bombarded with ads about how special those diamond earrings will make their sweetheart feel -- feeling like this holiday is all about manipulating and coercing them into buying into some supermarket magazine idea of what's romantic. If that's the way they feel, I can easily see them thinking their feelings don't matter in the relationship if the response is "But I really like it."
Added: With the expectation that that means that they have to celebrate it anyway, every year, because their loved one thinks their reasons don't cut it.
Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
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I think it's more than that. It's not just that the only reason given is "I really like it." but also "Your feelings about this are silly and unreasonable and I'm going to disregard them."
edit: Curses. ElJay edited to agree with me. Now I look sillier.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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I think MrSquicky and katharina are arguing the same point but they just happen to be on opposite sides when it comes to Valentine's Day. It seems to me that you're both saying that it's unreasonable NOT to compromise.
Posts: 697 | Registered: Nov 2005
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Last night I managed to swing by Cafe Rio, buy Tiffany and myself dinner, pick her up, AND get her in the apartment before she even knew I had bought it. We had a semi valentines day celebration last night because tonight we are both swamped. But Ill still get her a flower, write her a poem, and with alittle luck finish the lyrics to the song I wrote for her on the guitar. I've had the music down for weeks, but its so hard to come up with lyrics that I can remember and actually like.
Not to mention I can't decide if I like the song better with or without distortion.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: "Your feelings about this are silly and unreasonable and I'm going to disregard them."
But the feelings aren't being disregarded. First, it's not as though She Who Must Be Obeyed is laying down the law from On High, here. Second, if the guy does wind up doing something for the girl he's dating, even if he'd rather not do anything, in a loving relationship the girl will appreciate the special effort he went to to make her happy.
quote:Originally posted by ElJay: ...their loved one thinks their reasons don't cut it.
That isn't necessarily implied by asking that the holiday be celebrated against the other person's preferences, though. Squick seems to be taking that as a given, which I think is the source of the debate.
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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quote:Thinking the holiday is cheap and commercial doesn't count as a good reason in my book, though.
bother people? The idea that you can judge the validity of your partner's feelings and blithely dismiss them because you want them to do something that will make you feel good is at the heart of what I'm saying. I think the obligation to do something that your partner likes is important, but is offset by the partner at least acknowledging that you have valid feelings to the contrary. I don't think that "If you love me, you'll do this." outweighs "If you love me, you won't make me do this, or at the very least not dismiss my desire not to do this out of hand."
But it looks like many people have no problem accepting this.
edit: That comment disregards that this is even a matter to compromise on. The one side is automatically labelled unreasonable.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:That isn't necessarily implied by asking that the holiday be celebrated against the other person's preferences, though.
It's not that I'm taking that as a given. It's what is being said to me.
If you don't do Valentine's day and your partner doesn't enthusiastically consent to this, then you are labeled horridly self-centered.
Your reasons for not wanting to do this, valid though they may seem to you, are unworthy of consideration.
People are only considering this from their angle, from the perspective that "I want to do this." If I wasn't presenting the other side, it would pretty much be absent from this thread.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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All else being equal, coaxing the inactive into action is less hurtful than coaxing the active into inaction. This applies to Valentine's Day and all other aspects of the relationship.
Example:
Radiohead is playing in your town. You really, really want to go, but your sig. other can't stand them. None of your friends can go that night. I think if your sig. other refused to go, that would be more hurtful to you than going would be to them.
Not a perfect analogy, but hopefully you get what I'm trying to say here.
Posts: 4313 | Registered: Sep 2004
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quote:All else being equal, coaxing the inactive into action is less hurtful than coaxing the active into inaction.
Does this apply to my physical contact or sex examples? Because other people have already said that they don't.
This might work if, in my perspective, this rule was actually applied globally. But it doesn't seem to be so to me. People keeping on throwing qualifications on, which often seem to me to boil down to "It works whichever way I want it to. When I want to do something, doing something is more important. When I don't, avoiding the intrusion is most important."
edit: Also, I don't agree with your example. In that situation, I would go alone and not inflict 3 huors of something I know she wouldn't enjoy on my significant other.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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If I was the Radiohead fan in that example, I'd just go alone.
-------
quote:I don't think that "If you love me, you'll do this." outweighs "If you love me, you won't make me do this, or at the very least not dismiss my desire not to do this out of hand."
But "I don't like Valentine's Day because I think it's cheap and commercial" is not the same as "If you love me, you won't make me celebrate it." If the anti-Valentine's Day feelings were very strong -- like, the guy organized a boycott of Hallmark or something -- then maybe that would be a valid comparison.
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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quote:Originally posted by twinky: That isn't necessarily implied by asking that the holiday be celebrated against the other person's preferences, though. Squick seems to be taking that as a given, which I think is the source of the debate.
Actually, I was reacting there to Brinestone's post that says, basically, that Jon Boy's reasons for not liking Valentine's Day don't cut it.
Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
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Presumably, she feels that Jon Boy's antipathy toward Valentine's Day is not strong enough that celebrating it in spite of his antipathy would cause him significant emotional distress.
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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That has moved from a hypothetical example to a specific poster. ElJay, I think you're out of line. That isn't cool.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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quote:If the anti-Valentine's Day feelings were very strong -- like, the guy organized a boycott of Hallmark or something -- then maybe that would be a valid comparison.
I don't accept that, but I do agree with the underlying premise.
I don't accept it because you are assuming that the desire for people to celebrate Valentine's day is on the level of a guy organizing a boycott of Hallmark. I don't think it is generally anywhere near that strong. If you get to judge my feelings as being weak, can I say that people largely attach importance to Valentine's day because the commercial interests that profit from it tell them to. If I'm doing romantic stuff throughout the year and demonstrating that I love the other person, can you really support the idea that I'm not doing this because I don't love them.
I agree with the underlying assumption, however, that this is a matter for compromise in which the relative strength of people's feelings on the matter are important. I just disagree with your relative weighing.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:If you get to judge my feelings as being weak, can I say that people largely attach importance to Valentine's day because the commercial interests that profit from it tell them to.
Sounds like you're dismissing the feelings of those who want to celebrate V-Day as shallow and not worth considering.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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quote:Originally posted by ElJay: Sounds awfully self-centered to me.
I assume they discussed it. [Added: What I mean is that in place of "presumably, she feels," I should have said "presumably, they've decided."]
quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: I agree with the underlying assumption, however, that this is a matter for compromise in which the relative strength of people's feelings on the matter are important. I just disagree with your relative weighing.
That's fair enough. I used hyperbolic language deliberately to make the overall sentiment clear -- I probably should have said I was doing that.
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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kat, I was reacting to twinky's presumptive statement, not the details of Jon Boy & Brinestone's actual situation, which we obviously don't know.
Brinestone, my apologies if that wasn't clear.
Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
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Brinestone wasn't just talking about Jon Boy there, with whom she may have discussed this, but about anyone who would fit her generalized you. She was, for example, talking about me and telling me that one of my reasons was invalid.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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I got a dozen roses, chocolates, a little heater for the house, a bike rack bag thingy for my bike so that I can carry things with me, a stuffed lion, and some other mystery surprise gift that he couldn't pick up in time because the store didn't open until noon.
I don't know what kind of store opens until noon, but he's very insistent that the surprise element is important. So I think he's going to get that tomorrow.
I gave him homemade gel candles with flowers and hearts and things in them that I almost burned my fingers off making.
In the hypothetical situation where both feelings are sincere and strong, I think...that since it is possible to make guestures of love that do not involve commercial transactions (MPH's excellent example, for one), that all other things being equal, the person who does not want to celebrate the holiday can come up with something to make the person to whom the holiday is quite important feel heeded and loved. The person to whom the holiday is important can also come up with the appreciation and gratitude for the effort made, and not lament the lack of a flowers and candy routine.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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quote:Sounds like you're dismissing the feelings of those who want to celebrate V-Day as shallow and not worth considering.
If you care about someone, I don't believe that their actual feelings are ever not worth considering.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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Here's a really good reason, in my opinion, for Valentine's Day:
Sometimes, you and your SO have completely conflicting schedules. Valentine's Day makes it easier to schedule a time for you to spend with one another because you know in advance that it's going to be there, and you know that your efforts will be coordinated so that one of you doesn't leave early from work while the other goes in to work early.
quote:the person who does not want to celebrate the holiday can come up with something to make the person to whom the holiday is quite important feel heeded and loved.
Again, this attitude confuses/disturbs me. I always try to make my girlfriend feel heeded and loved. To me, that's the ground state of our relationship. I don't understand a relationship in which it wouldn't be.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: pH, That sounds really great except that it works for every other single day of the year.
It doesn't really. There are plenty of very hard-working people who need to know in advance that X day is a day we will spend together. Yes, you can pick any day far in advance, I suppose. But why should it be a bad thing for it to be Valentine's Day?
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