AS OFFICIAL North Grounds Love Correspondent, numerous confused Business and Law students come up to me, asking about what to do about Valentine's Day. Inevitably, those questions reveal the major problem inherent in the Hallmark-sponsored holiday - it stinks.
"Oh, great," groans a love-struck reader who has spent $39.95 on a dozen white roses and an Elton John album to make some impressionable 18-year-old swoon. "Wood is going to moan about not getting a date for an entire column."
No, everyone remain calm. My hatred of this most wretched of all days doesn't originate from some deep-seeded frustration and mis-investment in years' worth of cards that have "Tijuana be my Valentine?" printed on them. Instead, I only want the world to get along in a slightly more sincere, deep and loving way.
I'm not kidding. For those who plan to use Valentine's Day and naked babies with arrows solely as a means of obtaining quick and superficial sex, this isn't for you, although I do hope you would choke on your next bon-bon. Instead, I aim this lament at those who believe themselves to be in a relationship of any meaning.
The problem with Feb. 14 deals with its imposition of strange expectations. Of course, one easily can moan about the over-commercialization of the holiday and about how guys feel compelled to try to purchase something that relates chocolate, thorny flowers and sex in a way that isn't crude or offensive. However, this year focuses on how V-Day harms potential relationships. p>
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As already mentioned, people in a relationship feel compelled to do something special on the Day of Love. These people often want to do something to make the other happy, relying on stereotypes created in Cosmopolitan, movies like "Steel Magnolias" and "Thelma and Louise," as well as television shows like "The View." Apparently, Star Jones and Barbara Walters know what today's women expect in a man.
Here is where the holiday's mixed expectations come into effect. Tragically, unless a male is Mel Gibson, has been hit by 1,500 volts of electricity and has a script entitled "What Women Want," that guy will not know what a woman wants.
Guys' stereotypes of what women expect often are rather convoluted and complex. Guys think women want a romantic, candle-lit dinner involving some sort of French or Italian-sounding entr
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