Valentine's Day just as scary as Halloween
By Gina Barreca: Published 2/13/2012; Updated 2/14/2012 - 12:02am
What’s that scary holiday where you’re encouraged to dress up, hope for a trick or a treat, and expect candy? Where chatting up a virtual stranger after dark seems normal? When whispering voices warn to be afraid, to be very afraid, especially if you’re on your own?
Why, it’s Valentine’s Day!
Only the truly brave can face Valentine’s Day without either compulsory cynicism or a craven sense of neediness.
On Halloween, after all, you’re supposed to assume a mask and pretend to be somebody else. On Valentine’s Day, you’re supposed to strip your emotional soul naked and run shrieking toward the oceanic vastness of your partner’s essence. This can be tricky if you’re only on a second date.
That’s why a lot of men do on Feb. 14 what others do on Oct. 31 — turn off the lights and pretend to be “not home.”
For men, Valentine’s Day is filled with horror. Is that really a surprise? They can’t win. For men, all they know is that they’re going to spend time searching for a way to spend money on who knows what for some woman who will, when she receives it, force that little tight smile, like a cat taking a poop, to indicate her insincere gratitude.
It’s a holiday celebration of inadequacy. He will fail. He has always failed. Just like Jack Nicholson in “The Shining” who has always been at that hotel, this guy has always been in the lingerie section of the department store muttering, “I think she likes mauve. But I don’t know what mauve is.”
And he’s one of the “lucky” ones. A “lucky” person on Valentine’s Day has a significant other, no matter how miserable that relationship might be. That’s romance in America. Two miserable people thanking God they have each other for one night in February.
The unlucky ones are opening sparkly elementary school-type cards from their parents during a call about their younger sibling’s adorable newest child, all while trying not to detect a note of disappointment in their mother’s voice when she asks about their cat.
Frankly, it could be worse.
For women, in a relationship or not, Valentine’s Day is filled with ghosts. Usually these ghosts are properly deceased. They exist only in the woman’s imagination. There’s a nostalgic aspect to the whole thing, which drives women’s current partners, should they have any, nuts.
For example, I remember every Valentine’s Day card ever sent to me. The one from the cute boy in third grade whose mother signed his name; cute but not so bright, that kid. The one from my high school boyfriend who drew 73 hearts on the envelope, one for each day of our relationship; affectionate but overdid things. One from the guy I crushed on in college that had a drunk dog, a spilled beer and dead plant on the cover. That sure said, “love” in every language, right? I should have regarded it as a warning sign rather than an invitation, but what did I know?
These days, my husband of 20 years can’t remember that he sent me the same card three Valentine’s in a row. I’m starting to suspect he bought a fistful of them just so he wouldn’t have to go into Hallmark again.
A heart remains our most recognizable symbol of love. The cautious, the beaten down — the man, mostly — pick that cardiovascularly intimidating card off the rack and see, first and foremost, the thing which he suspects will one day attack and kill him. He buys it anyhow. Now that’s gotta be love. Or maybe a little fear. With their red corn syrup and heart-shaped cards, Halloween and Valentine’s Day can’t help but bleed into one another.
Is it a surprise, then, that houses of horror are pretty much like tunnels of love on Valentine’s Day? That they’re hyped up, tricked out, cliched, and yet you still go in expecting to have a good time?
Next to Valentine’s Day, Halloween is a celebration for sissies. Give me the Wicked Witch of the West (or Freddy Krueger, for that matter) over Cupid, that grotesque son of Venus who drags a bow and arrow around like it’s the AK-47 of romance. Cupid is just a sniper of love. Beware.
Gina Barreca is an English professor at the University of Connecticut, a feminist scholar who has written eight books, and a columnist for the Hartford Courant. She can be reached at