St. Valentine's Day

Hey. Happy Valentine's Day.
Or not.

Being half-cut at the fag-end of a dull day and start of a bleak night as I am is probably not the best time to be writing about stuff like this but it's my blog and I can do what I want. And sadly there's no one to tell me to get to bed, to kiss me until I shut up and do something constructive with my hands. There is however plenty of Lidls finest vodka left so what the fuck.

Valentine's Day. It's a tough one isn't it? If you are in a loving relationship then I hope you've already made it clear to your significant other that they are loved and valued, in which case the day could be looked on as merely an excuse for a night out, or sometimes just as a commercial itch, an itch ruthlessly exploited by commerce, a vaguely tawdry pastel coloured joke. Or it could be a really special day, an affirmation or even declaration if you are at the start of a Big Adventure. If you aren't with anyone, it becomes a technicolour, multi-media, 24-hour salt in the wound reminder that you are
On
Your
Own.
The echo that returns to you from the limits of your single space, suddenly defines a cave a whole lot larger than you thought it was. Scary. Lets go out and go mad and pretend we don't care! Ha ha ha ha ha ha Being on our own is brilliant! Look at me ! I'm happy! Don't look at me too close though! You might see something...sad!

Hang on Marrok, why shouldn't you celebrate being alone? Isn't love, fidelity, loyalty, sharing so impossibly 2oth Century? Why not enjoy living alone, forming connections and collaborations for sex or nights out on the piss or movies or interesting multi-media projects. The solace of casual sex is out there, uncomplicated, quick, clean, painless and utterly, desolately, empty. For me anyway. For those of you that it fits for now, well done. You have embraced what you are told is the zeitgeist. Just don't think it will fit for ever, zeitgeists have a habit of shifting. Hence the name.

On the other hand seeing as the chance of finding someone to share your life with who also considers that a worthwhile goal is diminishing, being incredibly unfashionable and un-post-modern, why bother even hoping there might be someone for you?

Well for one (ignoring the fact that the last two reasons are always good reasons to do or value something), all of our millions of ancestors did pair and maintain, in some way or another, and it paid off. We, and our so-called civilisation, are here. More importantly for me, the happiest I have ever been is in long term relationships (or what I thought would be). That goes for moments of insight, sexual ecstasy, general background contentment, financial security, periods of intense creativity and (unfashionable word-alert) joy. Coming from the union of two parents who loved each other until the day death parted them probably helps. To me it's not an outmoded idea or impossible fiction. I was there, I saw it. It worked.

OK, if you were or are in a relationship where that didn't happen, I'm sorry, just get over it or get the fuck out - it's not what I'm talking about. Doesn't mean it will never work, although it definitely won't if you keep telling yourself it won't - guaranteed. Yeah it's scary, but you need to throw the dice sometimes, to feel the wind of chance in your in your face again, flex and reach; otherwise you have every chance of hardening and shrinking into a smaller, brittle soul.

Yes I can survive and get by on my own. I'm a werewolf for fuck's sake and have nothing to prove. So what. The trouble is , I know that I can live with someone who loves me.

Being with someone for good (or a reasonable facsimile thereof), that loves you and that you love means you can start to relax into the ride. You deepen as a person, a whole raft of anxieties and neuroses that you thought defined you can fall away. You get a chance to rest properly too, to have a break and look around. Someone that you know you can trust can take a watch now and again. You get to know yourself, by talking to someone that knows you, really knows you; you get to grow. I know. I've been there one or twice. And who knows, maybe again one day.

So, raising a final martini to us all - drunk or sober, together or alone;
May we find, or keep, our heart's desire.
Happy Valentines Day!

"Let the people who never find true love
Keep saying there's no such thing.

Their faith will make it easier for them to live and die."

-Wislawa Szymborska