Cupid is a Dick

• Lori Palminteri
• Uncategorized
• February 14, 2015

Years ago, on Valentine’s Day, my best friend Lauren and I decided to go out to dinner.  We went to a sushi restaurant.  The waitress gave us both roses, and we giggled at the absurdity of it all.  Going out to dinner for Valentine’s Day wasn’t some single ladies feminist statement.  Lauren and I are goof balls.  We thought it would be funny, and that was reason enough to go out.  We were seated at a table between a young couple in their twenties, and an older middle-aged couple.

It was packed.  We were trapped between two couples, one new and one old, who went out to dinner because they had to.  There was no escaping the tension.  Both couples fought the whole time.  They bickered about petty shit, unaware that their dissatisfaction was a mere symptom of a deeper issue.  Lauren and I couldn’t even make eye contact with one another.  We were keeping our laughter down to a minimum, but either of us could burst into a hysterical frenzy at any time.  Out everyone in that restaurant, I think we were the only ones actually having fun.

It was like seeing the future of the young couple, or the past of the older couple.  Both were doomed.  They went out on Valentine’s Day because that’s what couples do.  Love had long been out of the equation, if it had ever even been in it.

Being perpetually single on Valentine’s Day doesn’t bother me in the least. Being single doesn’t bother me. Quite honestly, I really love being alone.  I don’t say single.  I feel like when people say they love being single, it implies they love going out and meeting people.  I don’t love that.  I hate it, actually.  You don’t feel lonesome when there is simply no one you want to be with.

I think stupid holidays are good for one reason: they remind you to be thankful for the good people in your life that you love.  I’m busy, and cynical, and emotionally a borderline sociopath, so I often forget to tell the people I care about in my life how much they mean to me (except my nephew, who I basically smother with kisses).  I shouldn’t need a holiday to remind me to be thankful for the people in my life who are good to me, but alas, I’m an idiot.

My Dad has never failed to buy his kids a box of chocolates for Valentines Day (thanks, Dad!).  For years, it’s been the only Valentine’s gift I’ve received.  I love my Dad, and I love candy, so it’s always made me happy.  Now, I usually perform on Valentine’s Day.  The audiences are generally a mix of single people who didn’t want to be alone, cool couples looking for something different than just a dinner, and the couples that forced themselves out because it’s Valentine’s Day.

The tragedy of Valentine’s Day is not the single people.  It’s those couples who’s relationships are as shitty as those CVS Valentine’s Day teddy bears.  The couple’s who force it one day a year to make up for the fact that their relationship is trite.  Valentine’s Day belongs to them.  It belongs to the sexually frustrated house wives who love 50 Shades of Grey.  It belongs to the men who overcompensate with huge bouquets of flowers because they can’t stand listening to their wives 364 days a year.  It belongs to the young couples who are so desperate to not be alone, they convince themselves they are in love.  It’s their holiday.  Like a child who believes in Santa, they blind themselves to all the bleeding evidence that what they have is not real.  Cupid never needed arrows for those truly in love.

From the stage, I can see it all.  I can see it in their body language.  In their eyes.  How they look at me.  How they laugh at a joke.  People who love each other look at each other when they really laugh.  They want to share it.  They don’t need Valentine’s Day.  They know it.