I USED to be puzzled as to why my boyfriend likes to buy me presents online. But now, Frank, I've figured out your secret. You'd rather use the enclosed card than try to pick one out.
Picking out Valentine gifts is tough, but picking out cards is harder. The card is supposed to represent your feelings about the recipient. In reality, though, Valentine's Day cards represent our stupid ideas about Valentine's Day itself.
Not everybody in a relationship buys each other tangible gifts for Valentine's Day, but everybody at least buys cards for their significant other. So you would think Hallmark would make cards representative of all types and stages of relationships. But instead, the cards tend to fit into three categories: indecent proposals, near-marriage proposals, and thanking your mate for putting up with you for the past twenty years.
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I even found this to be true in the University Bookstore, most of whose customers don't need cards in any of those three categories. There probably are lots of people who, due to unbridled lust, want to buy the indecent card, but hopefully wouldn't go through with it.
Basically every card under the "romantic" heading is sexual. Most of the cards don't mention the word sex, but they make it pretty clear. My personal nomination for most tacky has one naked person chasing the other on the front with the caption: "You naked + me naked = fun." And then on the inside, "Don't you love nude math? Happy Valentine's Day!" There's also the classic "What's the most important part of deciding where to spend Valentine's Day?" and on the inside, under a bed, "Location, Location, Location!" If you aren't careful who you give that to, you might end up in the doghouse.
Then there's the overly emotionally serious card - almost a marriage proposal. Like the one that says "Looking into your eyes makes me realize how much I love you, and how much I always will." Or, worse, the card in the "New Love" section that confidently proclaims, "I know I will never love another as much as I love you." Girls, do not buy this card for your "new love" unless you want him to run screaming.
The third category is the one for married people. These include the "Spouse - Humor" division, where the guy thanks his wife for picking up his socks for all those years, and addresses the card to "the love of my life, my wife" - don't you love the cheesy rhyme? These cards almost are enough to make me dump my boyfriend now and swear off men, before I end up with someone long enough to receive cards that essentially say, "I'm sorry I haven't done anything romantic in years, but I love you." How comforting.
Hallmark's attempt to shove everybody into the lust-crazed, mushy or married categories makes it really frustrating for the rest of us, who just want a card that expresses affection. Or the people who are single. I've known many people who meet somebody they like close to Valentine's Day but don't ask them out until after Valentine's Day. So maybe Hallmark should make the "from one single person to another" card. But only if they can keep sex out of it.
I think my worst card-shopping experience was when I was sixteen and had my first boyfriend. I was so excited to have a Valentine, until I tried to buy him a card. It just didn't work. Even mildly risque cards like "Valentine, could you be any hotter?" were inappropriate when I was dating someone who still had braces. Let alone the supposedly "romantic" cards that had me blushing just reading them.
I thought I might be saved when I saw a "teen" card. But it really should have read "grade school" because it entirely consisted of a front cover with, "Valentine, just sending you a little note to say. . ." and in the inside, "I like you!" with a stupid-looking animal inside. Thanks, Hallmark. Make me pay $1.99 for something I could say myself.
All of these asinine cards, while amusing, represent the larger stupidity of how we feel about Valentine's Day and about relationships. Basically, if your love life doesn't resemble "Sex in the City," a DeBeer's ad or Homer and Marge, then it doesn't count. Unfortunately, too many people subscribe to this, particularly those girls who read Cosmo or Glamour's "how he stole my heart" column and then expect their Valentine's Day to be just like the stories. This is how you get girls who call up their best friend on February 15 in tears because they got an assorted bouquet instead of roses, while the best friend, who is single, rolls her eyes.
This year, if you can't find a card that perfectly represents your relationship, don't feel invalidated by Hallmark. Spend the extra dollar and get a singing telegram with your words. And if you aren't attached, be thankful - you have better things to do than spend two hours looking at bad pickup lines.
(Elizabeth Managan's column appears Wednesdays in The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at emanagan@cavalierdaily.com.)
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