Uh-oh. We're coming up to that time of the year again. No, I'm not talking about Christmas or Eurovision-season or March. I'm talking about that one day with so many expectations resting on its shoulders that it's almost impossible not to get disappointed or ignore it.
Not even the most cold-hearted cynic out there is immune to it. Because if you live anywhere remotely civilized it's been impossible to miss that this Sunday is Valentine's Day.
It all started a couple of weeks ago when most restaurants around London put up huge pink signs with hearts and stars and cakes and unicorns... you know, stuff like that. And they're all telling us to BOOK OUR TABLE NOW for Valentine's Day, because otherwise we might not get one and be left standing in the cold.
Although apparently restaurants aren't the best places to go to for Valentine's Day. A friend with more experience of this than I told me that eating out on Valentine's Day was one of the most depressing experiences of her life.
Lots of couples being rushed through their dinner because the table had to be cleared for the next stressed out lovers sweating with expectation. And worse than that, the couples also compete in loved-upness, because it's Valentine's Day after all and it's supposed to be fucking special, dammit! So if the couple next to you happens to look a bit more cuddly, then that takes away some of your joy.
Looking at statistics makes Valentine's Day look a bit less rosy as well. In the States chocolate and candy sales reached profits of 1 billion dollars and 14 billion dollars were spent on greeting cards during Valentine's Day last year.
It's all very crass if you think about it and engineered to make us spend more money. In Finland, where I come from, Valentine's Day is called Friend's Day and the emphasis lies on looking after the people you love. Not that people do though and the Americanized version of the holiday has crept in over the last few years. Still I've pretty much managed to ignore it and am one of those annoying people who try to pretend they're all cool and not very girly about it.
Living in London makes that pretty difficult though and I will now put huge demands on my boyfriend to make Valentine's Day perfect. I want roses and chocolate and a puppy... well maybe not a puppy since we'd probably have to take it back to the pet shop in a few days when I got bored.
But you hear that... my demands are now up on the interweb and if Sunday doesn't live up to my expectations, I'll just go and hide in a cave somewhere, eat chocolate and watch Valentine's Day until I think the only real way of expressing love is running crying into each other's arms in an airport (or maybe CentralPark).
Image via Sister72.