Happy Valentines Day! I view today about telling everyone that you care for them, not just telling your partner how much you love them! However, it never ceases to amaze me how intent some people are on being cynical, grumpy and generally ready to (and excuse the phrase) piss on other people’s bonfires.
From Monday this week, not only was my Twitter feed but also my Facebook timeline full of “get ready for the smug valentines posts” and on a couple of forums I belong to, there are people slating other people for posting messages of love for their partners. I personally like this, it gives me hope that there actually people who still like each other out there! But in amongst messages of love for partners, I’ve also seen messages of love for friends, family and, believe it or not, ex-loves. I know that Valentines is predominantly about couples, but in the past I have sent Valentines cards to friends, both female and male to show my ‘love’ for them as valued friends. Also on my Facebook timeline I have seen children buying parents Valentines, parents buying children Valentines…honestly I think it’s lovely!! My boys are typical boys and it sort of passes them by.
I have had my fair share of Valentines on my own, in fact I once got dumped on Valentines Day! But it has never bothered me being on my own. I’m not going to deny that there was a little bit of the green-eyed monster when I saw friends and couples enjoying themselves on the day but I’ve never once thought anything negative towards those people or the day. Well ok maybe once when a nurse friend of mine got picked up in a chauffeur driven car from the hospital to the airport, whisked to Prague and proposed to. I did think very very uncharitable things at that….especially when I few years later my proposal was at Alton Towers. Yep.
I am a hopeless hopeless romantic though. I am not a jealous person on the whole, I have looked at every single post on my Facebook timeline and smiled today. I love seeing the flowers, and cooked breakfasts and even the IOU note for one person. Some people have had very grand gestures, others have had just small tokens and I haven’t felt a twinge of jealousy from one of them. Because, and maybe I’m the gullible one, I believe people have posted because they are genuinely happy to have received a gift or some acknowledgement of appreciation, and not just showing off. In today’s world we are all so busy rushing around, working, family life etc it’s very easy to neglect the people in your life. This is a day to stop and just think about them for a day, and who wouldn’t want someone to do that?
I know that there are genuinely people who are having a tough time at the moment, who Valentines Day somehow underlines their personal hardship, but funnily enough these people never say anything. They endure it, and yet these people should be showered with love by friends, family and partners if they have one of course! I really hope that a couple of my friends have been showered this year.
This isn’t particular to Valentines Day though, it’s becoming a regular thing on my social media. It’s almost like there is a hard-core of people who have to bash the day, whether it’s Christmas, Mothers Day, Valentines…you name it. At first I ignored, everyone is entitled to their own opinion. But now some of these people just come across as determined to spoil it for everyone else. It reminds me of the only child at a birthday party, jealous the attention isn’t on them so they deliberately spoil it for everyone else.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand that not everyone likes to publish declarations of love, or post pictures of what they eat for tea everyday, and not everyone enjoys looking at those pictures. But it’s also everyone’s right to do the things that please them in this very short life. It’s not your place to judge, comment or bemoan another persons actions…after all the world would be a very dull place if everyone thought the same!
Thoughts of a permanently stressed woman! 