An Awkward Romantic’s Valentine’s Day Dilemma

Everyone’s favorite holiday is approaching, that’s the “Show me you still care with a public display of I still matter to you” Day. Some people still refer to it as Valentine’s Day. The day where the women in our lives are pandered to, though we take them for granted during the other 364 days of the year. Well ladies, it is a leap year, so you better make that 365 days.

I am one of the hopeless males you have come to accept with a sigh and a shake of your head — you know the type. We want you to feel special so we will take our iPhones and translate a Pablo Neruda poem to English that we can only hope you are not familiar with, so we can pass it off as our own. Next, we will regale you with flowers bought from shady websites that will later steal our identities and use them to apply for countless credit cards. Well, the joke is on them — because my credit was already ruined. The finishing touch is usually a handmade dinner that tastes just like King Taco, but we swear up and down that it’s a recipe that goes back to our great-great-great-great abuelita.

Look, I know I am a caveman but I have not read up on what kind of caveman I am. I might not have the adequate upper body strength to be a hunter, or the botanical knowledge to make a proper salad, but I try to try. It used to be so much easier when I was a kid: if you liked someone, you gave them a Batman or Superman valentine; if you did not like someone, you stuck them with an Aquaman or Green Lantern valentine. Gabriela Estar and Julia Valencia always got the Batman cards, I would save them for last and write a personal greeting in red pen.

I challenge Pablo Neruda to come off with something like that.

Nowadays, valentines are too politically correct. No one wants to hurt anybody else’s feelings, and they all sound like permission slips to be friends.  Batman must have succumbed to the complications of his reckless lifestyle because he has been replaced by brand name fads and product placement. I would be placated to find one Simpsons’ “I Choo-choo-choose You” card.

The bottom line is that I’m trying to be romantic, but it does not come easy because all the people I want to be romantic with do not wish to be romantic with me. Simply put, the valentines do not have the magic they once used to.  Oh Batman, this lonely nation and I turn our eyes to you, as I log in to freeflowerz.kenya.org to buy flowers. I wonder why they need my banking information.