10 things I hate about Valentine’s day

All the red. Do you know that in many parts of the world, blue is considered to be the colour of love?

1.   The commercialisation. Valentine’s Day used to be about professing and celebrating love but now it’s not V-Day unless you get at least a dozen roses, a box of chocolates and some very expensive jewellery for your girl. Is this really what showing your love is about?

2.    All the red. Do you know that in many parts of the world, blue is considered to be the colour of love? It symbolises trust, loyalty, wisdom, confidence, intelligence, faith, truth, and heaven, technically everything you want from love. So can you please tone down the red, it’s giving me a headache!

3.    The tacky gifts. I’ll admit, I love teddy bears but it’s really embarrassing to come out of a store carrying a big red teddy bear that keeps bleating “I wuv you” to complete strangers.

4.    The fakers. They act like they don’t care about V-Day until the actual day. Then they gush to their friends about the wonderful gifts they got. Please don’t insult our intelligence, we know that you pushed him into the store and handed him the money.

5.    The drama. All the single people who use the day as an excuse to whine about their pathetic lives. It’s really painful listening to each of your friends blabbering on about how they are never going to find true love. Please stop, I’m this close to shooting myself.

6.    The haters. I just want to say to all those V-Day haters who love to pick on happy couples: Everybody knows that while you say you despise the day, secretly you just need some ‘wuv’ in your life.And a teddy bear.

7.    The single people. Yes, yes. We all know how happy you are being single. You also don’t have to tell us about the fact that you are free from all commitments and obligations on V-Day. Stop ruining the day for us, it’s really annoying.

8.    The “I forgot” excuse. Lots of guys use this excuse to get out of celebrating V-Day all together. How can you forget about V-Day? There are red balloons, hearts and teddy bears everywhere! And no, colour blindness is no excuse?

9.    The television. Every channel on V-Day is awash with red and all of their content is about love. Why do we have to suffer through all of that when all we want to do is to watch is a good action flick.

10.    The questions. Yes, I am single. No, I like being single. No, I do not hate Valentine’s Day because I am single.I’m not anti-love or a misanthrope. I’m just single!

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, February 12^th, 2012.