[NON BLOG] Meditations on Valentine's Day
Feb. 14th, 2005 12:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldToday is the 14th of February, Valentine's Day.
This is somewhat worrying for me, and not because of any plans to partake in a mass suicide.
No, I am worried because this Valentine's Day in 2005 is the first Valentine's Day I've experienced in the context of a dating relationship. One thing I've noticed so far is that dating, and intimate relationships, make extensive use of rhetoric. More, dating requires a very precise deployment of rhetoric: one must say what one means, and one must try and make sure that the other party understands what one means to say. If only the error-checking codes of the Voyager space probes could be transferred to human speech.
Valentine's Day is iconic. On iconic days, one must do iconic things. My particular problem is that I'm not sure what sort of iconic things I'm supposed to be doing. Perusing The Advocate on Friday, for instance, I noticed with some initial relief that said newsmagazine listed recommended gifts, of media (a magazine, a book, a CD) after six weeks, and of sweets of some kind after two months. This passed, of course, once I realized that the article also conveniently listed ways in which the intentions behind these gifts could be misinterpreted.
I've given up. We'll be going to the Royal Ontario Museum. Hopefully too many misinterpretations can't come from that.
This is somewhat worrying for me, and not because of any plans to partake in a mass suicide.
No, I am worried because this Valentine's Day in 2005 is the first Valentine's Day I've experienced in the context of a dating relationship. One thing I've noticed so far is that dating, and intimate relationships, make extensive use of rhetoric. More, dating requires a very precise deployment of rhetoric: one must say what one means, and one must try and make sure that the other party understands what one means to say. If only the error-checking codes of the Voyager space probes could be transferred to human speech.
Valentine's Day is iconic. On iconic days, one must do iconic things. My particular problem is that I'm not sure what sort of iconic things I'm supposed to be doing. Perusing The Advocate on Friday, for instance, I noticed with some initial relief that said newsmagazine listed recommended gifts, of media (a magazine, a book, a CD) after six weeks, and of sweets of some kind after two months. This passed, of course, once I realized that the article also conveniently listed ways in which the intentions behind these gifts could be misinterpreted.
I've given up. We'll be going to the Royal Ontario Museum. Hopefully too many misinterpretations can't come from that.
