For whatever reason, there were much less photos of flowers on my Facebook Newsfeed this year than there were last year. Much less. You’d think that would please me, but to be honest, I kind of missed it. In fact, I found myself scrolling through my homepage to get to the nearest flower pictures.
And they never came.
THE FLOWERS NEVER CAME.
That’s the one thing I can hope for from my Facebook friends — flowers on Valentine’s Day. The one single, consistent, cliché thing that I can expect every year. And this year, I was let down.
However, even with the absence of flowers, my Facebook friends did still manage to find something to appall me with.
I saw one female make a status that incorporated the words “Galentine’s Day.” I read it once and did a double take. Then I sounded it out. And then I looked at my keyboard and noticed that the ‘G’ and the ‘V’ are touching each other. So I concluded that it was a typo, and then I moved on with my day and didn’t think about it again.
Until about an hour later. That is when I saw it again. Except in this context, it read something along the lines of, “Happy Galentine Day, ladies!” And that’s when it clicked. Gal-entine’s Day.
I then proceeded to laugh.
Long ago I realized that it is virtually impossible for any girl to not have some type of emotions on Valentine’s Day.
And I won’t discriminate — guys are not immune to this either. I’ll admit that two to three years ago — shit, you can even look back into the archives and see for yourself — I became somewhat emotional on Valentine’s Day. February 14 has that effect on people where it makes them reexamine their recent love life experiences. So, naturally, if you recently had a bad experience with a member of the opposite gender, then you likely will have a bad Valentine’s Day.
But I am so far removed from those times that the past couple of Valentine’s Days literally meant nothing to me. I actually kept forgetting the significance of this day repeatedly until every time I checked my Newsfeed and saw everybody’s posts.
Girls, however, don’t forget that easily. And pretty much all of them make a point to inform the world of their personal well-being on this day. So this “Galentine’s Day” creation is just an extension of that.
On the surface it means, “Ayo, I lack a boyfriend but I got my girls, so who needs a man?!”
The subtext of that, however means — “SOMEBODY HELP ME I’M SINGLE AND ALONE!”
So, on that note, happy Galentine’s Day to all the girls out there.
Unfortunately, however, there is one girl out there who did not have a very good Valentine’s Day, and her name is Reeva Steenkamp, a South African model and the girlfriend of Olympic sprinter Oscar Pistorius.
You all remember Oscar Pistorius right? He was an inspiration to millions when, last year, he became the first double amputee to ever race in the Olympics. The 26-year-old South African used a custom-made prosthetic that enabled him to keep pace among the fastest people in the world. People fell in love with his story.
But in the blink of an eye, Pistorius — not unlike Lance Armstrong’s recent demise — went from an inspiration to a disgrace. Early this morning, he was charged by police for murdering his girlfriend, Ms. Steenkamp, who was found shot to death in his home.
This just pisses me off.
And not just because she was a beautiful model, but because she was a young woman who is now dead because of some diabolical no-legged asshole. Yeah, that’s right, I can say that now because he just killed somebody.
There are so many jokes to be made, like something about him being “armed,” or how this is an open-and shut-case that will not “stump” police, and thus Pistorius has “no legs to stand on.”
But the fact of the matter is that he is now a murderer. And on Valentine’s Day, no less. How fucking romantic.
Here’s one of the last tweets by Reeva Steenkamp, one day before she was shot to death:
Well, if she was posing that question to her boyfriend, then the answer is a gun.
Just awful. Models, this is why you should not obsess over celebrities, and should date average, normal people. We’re so average, so boring and so dull that we are afraid of guns. Bat-shit terrified. And therefore, we will treat you like you deserve to be treated. Hmm, maybe Bar Refaeli knew what she was doing in that Go Daddy commercial, after all.
Oh well.
But to make things a little lighter again, I can safely say that I lived up to the one Valentine’s Day tradition that I uphold, and that is asking — and subsequently getting rejected by — Taylor Swift to be my Valentine.
2011 rejection:
2012 rejection:
This year’s rejection:
I actually tried to be creative this year. I’m sure thousands ask Taylor to be their Valentine, so I needed mine to stand out. And since everybody knows that the 12th track on her new album Red is called “Sad Beautiful Tragic,” I thought that in the 1% chance Taylor does read my Tweet, that she might find it amusing.
But alas, no luck. There’s still three hours left in the day, though.
And to wrap up today, I need to address something that somehow I didn’t find the time to discuss throughout the entire week. But what better day to bring it up than on Valentine’s Day?
The Sports Illustrated 2013 Swimsuit Edition is in, and guess who made the cover?
For just the fifth time in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition’s history, a model has graced the cover for the second consecutive year, and her name is Kate Upton.
It’s a well deserved honor.
Kate is the last women to achieve the repeat cover distinction since Tyra Banks did it in 1996 and 1997. Interestingly, two models have actually had a 3peat on the S.I. cover before. Christine Brinkley did it in 1979, 80 and 81, while Elle MacPherson accomplished the feat between 1986 and 1988. Kate actually was on the cover in 2011 as an inset, which doesn’t technically count. But hey, a 3peat for her in 2014 would not shock me in the slightest.
And if by this time next year, if I am telling my friends that Kate Upton and I just pulled a 3peat experience of sexual intimacy, then that would shock me in the slightest.
Editor’s note: Upon minimal research, I just learned that “Galentine’s Day” is actually a reference to the show “Parks and Recreation.” So I guess the joke is on me. However, I still think the crux of what I said still very much holds true. I will not back down.