Get off the bridge you lonely hearts!

So here we are again...landed on the great day of LUUUUUUUV. So many millions of flowers, cards, candy, and ounces of bodily fluids such as spit and other fun stuff will be exchanged in a great show of emotional solidarity. This is the day we can all just unload our love on our sweethearts, which if unloaded on any other day, just isn't OFFICIAL enough to count. Everyone who has a romantic partner or a date is sighing with relief because it's like the mark of an outcast, an unlovable human being, to be alone today.

Those without anyone to celebrate and get funky with are out on bridges all across America asking themselves what they have to live for on a bleak February day like this with no prospects of romance. Either that or they are, at this cheerful hour of the morning, already headed for their local dive bar with the blacked out windows to start in on their sob fest.

I am not a romantic person. Romance and sentimentality make me extremely uncomfortable. If Philip leaned across the dinner table, looked lovingly in my eyes, and said "You are so beautiful my love! Shall we do a slow dance my darling? I've just put on our song..." I would probably instantly regurgitate my last bite of food in total shock. This is the stuff for romantic scenes in movies or books. I don't mind some sappy romance in books and movies, because they aren't real. I can enjoy them for the lovely fantasy.

I have the heart of a grumpy old man. It doesn't get less romantic than that. I played at being a romantic person when I was a teen. Sighing and pining for stupid-ass boys who I thought might be Prince Charming. I wrote romantic letters to them. I ate up the pretty compliments they fed me like "You are the best thing since sliced bread...". I once ate dinner at the house of an older man who pulled out all the wooing stops. He made dinner, which he was very proud of for some reason, and leaned over the candle light all evening to tell me over and over again how beautiful I was. Which felt exactly like being coaxed into a tender stupor so that he could jump my bones. Which is exactly what all romantic scenes like that are about. It feels cheap and tawdry.

Wooing is not love. Courtship is all about closing the deal. It's sex wrapped up in pretty paper. Sex is all well and good, generally enjoyed by all who engage in it, but sex is not romantic to me. Sex is primal. It's funky, it's kind of gross, it strips us of pretension, it puts us at our most vulnerable. Plus is makes you feel pretty great. But it's not love.* I would say it gets mixed up in the whole love melange of a relationship, but it is only a small reflection of the real thing.

Real love isn't about hearts and all things tender and beautiful. To me, real love is when you live with a person day in and day out and even when you are annoyed by them you can't imagine living with anyone else. Real love is looking forward to seeing your partner every day. Real love is not fluttery and light. Real love is visceral and weighty. It's earthy and connective. Real love is not minding giving your just operated-on spouse a sponge bath every morning for a week. Real love is being a team of two. Enjoying sharing things. Developing a common language between you. Real love is not something I think you can express in a card or even in words. Certainly not with candy. It's expressed in the action of living.

For any of you out there not hooked up, I would say, so what? Get off the damn bridge! There is rich enjoyment for you out there. It may be hard to be solitary at moments, since we humans are social creatures, but there is also so much fun and benefit to exploring the world solo. I spent most of my time, before marriage, being single. Since most of my women friends were almost constantly hooked up with men (or women in some cases), I know what it feels like to be surrounded by dating cooing idiots. Life is not just for lovers, it's for everyone. Go out there and be fabulous. Chances are pretty good that you will get hooked up eventually, and when that happens, you'll be so much better for having spent your solo time enjoying yourself and your life. No more excuses, no more sobbing.

As for us, here at the Williamson Ranch...we'll give candy to Max who thinks that's the point of Valentine's Day. We'll probably give each other some fancy chocolate, but not to be sweet, just because today is a great excuse to eat fancy chocolate. Valentine's Day has become more notable for the fact that it is the birthday and wedding anniversary** of my very close friend Chelsea:
Note: Sorry Chelsea! I always do that! Happy Anniversary in FOUR days!

*Which doesn't mean you can have sex with anyone you want when you are in a committed relationship.

**This is something we have in common. She got married on her birthday and so did I.