Geek Love

Ah, Hell Week...uh, I mean, Valentine's Day!

I was going to wait until the 14th to post about the holiday, but I decided better of it. I feel like on this I do have some geek wisdom on how to survive this week, no matter your relationship status...

Heh, didn't we all?

So if you are single, as I have been many many Valentine's Days, let me advise: it's not the end of the world. It may feel completely sucky and isolating, but it shouldn't and here is why. It's a day about love. And everyone knows there are different types of love, and not all of them are yucky, or heart-wrenching. Apparently in Sweden it's treated as Friendship Day, so you can celebrate all the "loves" of your life. I like to imagine that means all the Swedes call each other on this special day to say "hey bro, I love you." So, if you can't seem to ignore the day entirely, I say celebrate all the different loves in your life- friendship, family, etc. The Greeks would be so proud.

If you're still not into it- this is the perfect day to catch up on all the action-flicks you haven't seen in a while. Like, the ones that have zero love story. ZERO. I highly recommend Live Free or Die Hard. Any Die Hard is a good zero-love-story movie. But the 4th seems to go so well; remember how the asian chick and the bad guy were like a thing? Yeah, not a great Valentine's Day for them: in other words, it's a great film for a "misery loves company" approach. Casino Royale is another great way to go. The Avengers is another great one. And the Interpreter. There is no love in any of these movies, really. Just a lot of kicking ass. See what you are capable of when you don't have a significant other holding you back! Epic-ness! Enjoy!

Now, for those of us that do have that someone special, the day causes a wholly different kind of agony. Obligatory gift buying. And I've noticed when it's young love, it's high stakes. My parents have been together 25 years. This means a nice card and chocolates are sufficient. But for young love, it's a mess. When it's young puppy love or what have you, it pretty much means you have to set a price tag for just how much you care about this other person even if it's not something you've had to put into words yet. "I love you x-amount of dollars (or time) now tangible in this gift." But it's kind of a trap; too much too soon, too little after so long- there is no win.

I think Valentine's is much more successful to approach it as reflection and celebration of "how well do I know this person?" and then plan accordingly. Treat it as a challenge, when then makes it a bit of a game. For example, the best Valentine's Day gift I ever got actually was flowers. For the record, I kind of really dislike flowers. A lot. Fiance, he knew this but he also knew we couldn't celebrate Valentine's together. "Challenge accepted!" So he had flowers delivered to my place of work with the lyrics to one of Robin Sparkle's songs on How I Met Your Mother (our at-the-time-and-possibly-still-favorite-tv-show). Hours before receiving said flowers I wished Fiance a happy Valentine's on Facebook with a YouTube video of the other Robin Sparkle's song. 'twas EPIC, because it was like "man, we know each other so awesomely well!"

Also, I've decided Valentine's Day is a great time for geek gals to win some major bragging points for themselves and their equally geeky significant others. Here it is: the secret to an awesome present. This site has been the key to gift-giving success for 13 years. And I've used it consistently since I've discovered it. Like, every present I ever buy, I buy here. It may not be creative, Fiance knows he's going to get a gift there. But he never knows what and it's just pages and pages of epic-ness. Win freakin' win. Pair this with an awesome action flick that you know you'd love to watch anyway (like A Good Time to Die Hard!), and yippee ki-yay, you've got the most epic Valentine's day that not only you will enjoy, but all of your dude's friends will be so jealous while they are stuck in the latest Nicolas Spark's disaster. That or like, Step Up 25 (because they will never stop making those films either).

Happy Valentine's Day, everybody!

-BeetHats