St Valentine’s Day is coming soon, landing this year on a Saturday. Traditionally, it is an occasion to spend some time with your loved one but these days we are often told by the media – don’t bother. It is a day to ignore and be cynical about. There are extra points for being bitter.
Here is my advice: ignore the bitter cynics and ask someone you love out to dinner or lunch or coffee one day that weekend. It could be your husband or wife, boyfriend or girlfriend, your mother or sister, or best friend. Spend some time by sharing a meal with someone who you love and cherish.
Truly, I understand the impulse to resist the ‘commercial exploitation of the day,’ the mark up in the restaurants and all the rest of it. This is why I have offered you the entire weekend and you can choose any activity from coffee all the way through to the three course dinner if you want. I am nothing if not flexible. Indeed, take the week if you want. But I urge you to take someone out or at least spend some time with a loved one IRL (that’s in real life for my older readers.)
I love being taken out or going out for any of the following: coffee, lunch or dinner with any of my family or friends. When people tell you these things don’t matter, they are liars and fools. Over the years I have come to appreciate how important it is to go out with a loved one.
When a husband takes his wife out, or a parent treats a child to lunch, or you ask a friend for coffee and it is just the two of you are giving them a powerful message. You are telling them, without words, that you value them. You believe they are important and worthy of your time – face time no less. That’s in addition to the fact you are spending the price of the meal on them.
When you sit opposite your beloved in a restaurant and listen to their stories, their hopes and dreams, their tales of woe, what they have to say, they understand in their hearts that they are worthy of your full attention. You could be doing so many other things instead, watching the football, tweeting, cleaning the house, reading to a different child, shopping, reading to yourself, literally hundreds of things but instead, you are sitting here, with me, and it’s wonderful.
You are looking at them and listening to what they have to say. The message is: you are a special person in my life, a unique person who I love.
It goes without saying that you must not be on your phone during this time. If you are checking e-mail or the news or Twitter/Facebook/Instagram/
But Laura, you say, it’s all so expensive. Why can’t I do this in my own home? Well you can and you might get the same effect in which case I say go right ahead. But this does not work in Chez Perrins, as there are six of us and attention is divided. Also, I like going out as someone else is cooking and cleaning up, and if I do that at home, then it takes my attention away from the person who I want to give my attention to. There is shouting, and get this and get that, and John might throw a ball at my head so it’s not the same.
In a restaurant, as well as giving my full attention to my chosen date, I can people watch and listen to other people’s conversations. I check out what the twenty somethings are wearing. There is ‘the atmosphere’ and I always enjoy the buzz of ‘the atmosphere.’
My teenager daughter has celebrated ‘Galentine’s day” in the past. This falls the day before Valentine’s day and celebrates female friendship. This is a wonderful way to spend time with another human person or indeed persons in real life. The more time the youth spend with each other and not at home on their own on Snapchat the better. These occasions should be encouraged. The more of these get-togethers you have, the better your life will be.
In this world of e-mail, zoom, instant messaging and anti-social media, actually spending time with someone still trumps all. It is more important than ever. So make a date with a loved one – it doesn’t have to be on Valentine’s Day – and enjoy an hour or two out and in their company. You won’t regret it.