Did you know that today is Singles Awareness Day? No, really, it is. Its acronym is, well, S.A.D. The day after the pop culture appropriated the Christian Feast of St. Valentine, a third century Roman bishop and patron of married couples (yes, he really did exist), the people who give us jelly doughnut day, and siblings day, and any number of other emotionally triggered designated days have decided that unattached people need to be singled out for recognition.
As if those of us who are single are not well aware of that fact. In a culture where mothers crave placecards, and dress fittings, and flowers and beauty, we who are single do not need the reminders that we haven’t gone through the rituals of shedding that status regardless of whether or not it was and is intentional.
But the Cultural Marxists have decided to remind us anyway. From a website all about named days:
After a Christmas spent with elderly family members asking when they’re finally going to get married, or at least find a boyfriend or girlfriend to bring home, life does not get any easier for singles after Christmas, either. No sooner have the Santa Claus and snowman decorations vanished from the shops than the shelves begin to burst with cuddly teddy bears, heart-shaped balloons and boxes of cheap chocolates, all in shades of nauseating neon pinks and reds. Yes, Valentine’s Day has become one of the world’s most profitable occasions, yet another marketing scheme that has hit pay dirt more than the original creators of the idea could have ever dreamed….
It’s a humorous holiday to celebrate being single, to share with single friends, to send each other presents or even order yourself some flowers. On this day many people wear green, as it is the complementary opposite of red. Another popular option is an absence of color (black), to symbolize an absence of celebration.
So this is all a joke to the people who name days? That the culture which no longer fosters courtship as opposed to hooking up and is all about personal fulfillment in marriage rather than sacrifice for a spouse is telling those of us who have not found a suitable mate in life that we are, well, S.A.D.?
Frankly, the letters S.A.D. say something other than this is all light hearted fun. This woman’s status is no joke thanks to the cultural marxist overlords of the world.
It would not be hard to laugh off this sentiment if this was the only person making the claim, but this writer and more than one friend over the years have expressed the very sentiment – and one of those people was a married father of four.
Seriously, which way is it supposed to be? The Cultural Marxists need to make up their minds. We who are single are either S.A.D. or being kept out of the marriage market by their arbitrary rules of everybody needs an expensive “education,” and it’s okay to be in debt for most of one’s adult life.
And then there was this in news this week.
Man offers $25,000 to anyone who can find him a girlfriend
While many people are scrambling to find last-minute presents or even a date before Valentine’s Day, this Kansas man wants a little something more: A girlfriend. And he’s offering $25,000 to anyone who can help him find one.
Bachelor Jeff Gebhart told CBS affiliate KCTV that he has grown sick of dating the traditional way and especially abhors online dating. So, he said, he decided to think outside the box.
“Well think about it, if you’re in a happy marriage, what monetary value could you ever place on meeting the right person … ever?” the 47-year-old told the outlet. “My time and frustration and disappointment definitely is worth some sort of dollar figure but that was roughly what I’d spend in dating.”
Oh, hey, there’s a romantic idea. Put a price tag on the dating process. That will certainly make any woman feel special that the cost for dating and wooing a wife is twenty five grand. And then, there’s no guarantee the guy will be serious beyond having a date once a week, or that anything will last. Truthfully, the marriage mart is one risky place to be, and a lot of men (who, frankly, are in the drivers’ seat when it comes to getting married or not) are not willing to take the risk of being bankrupted by a wrathful woman. (Seriously, the way some women use men, this writer can’t blame them.)
But, that’s not all that singles have going against them when it comes to knowing that the culture is schizophrenic about our status whether or not we are. Honestly, thanks to an out of control wedding industry that exploits the vulnerability of the emotional human condition during what should be a joyful time and occasion in life, there really are scenes like this playing out across the fruited plain on a regular basis.
The truth of it all is that there have always been members of families who didn’t marry for some reason. Everyone has and has had maiden aunts. Clergy and lay religious are made up of such people. But never was their status called S.A.D. It was said that being single was what was meant to be. That’s all.
Why it would be S.A.D. now that single people exist and why anyone would need to remind us of our status and call it poking fun when it really isn’t, especially when the culture has shifted to the point that the battle of the sexes has turned incredibly toxic.
Just throwing this out there.
Thanks to the Cultural Marxists for the shout out, but most of us singles will pass on S.A.D.
They are mentally sick people.
For Valentines’ day I gave my wife a pack of Reese’s Peanut Butter cups.
Yes, that was it. And that’s all we needed.
A day like S.A.D. makes a huge amount out of NOTHING. It’s just crazy-making with no purpose, like most neo-marxism.
When they couldn’t get dates to the V. Monologues the radical feminists needed something else to be outraged over. Projecting their eternal dissatisfaction onto Western Civilization writ large is par for their narcissistic course.
Neomarxism spreads like a virus, a mental illness that spreads by emotional mirroring and manipulation, targeting vulnerable empathetic carriers and infecting them with envy and ingratitude. The plague spreads from carrier to carrier until it bumps up against people with enough self-worth, self-insight, humility, and gratitude that they are immune to the contagion.
I think you miss the point. Singles are being objectified as sad, as in pathetic losers.
Yes it was a 1970s construct, immediate fallout of the sexual revolution and Marxist feminism. “Looking for Mr. Goodbar”. Hollyweird has been promoting the image for decades. “Friends” being an obvious example. But gay characters have all the life satisfaction and no problems. Being unmarried was a vocational calling, now singleness is treated as failing at life.
Well…. I’ll just say this since I’ve been married for 37 yrs (Got this way when I was 20).
I was sick and tired of the “dating game” by 20. I sincerely asked God to send me a wife.
He did. They say “Marriage” is a 50/50 deal. We went at our “marriage” in a 70/30 deal. Give 70% of the time and Take 30% of the time. 50/50 leads to: Damn it! I’ve given my half and now it’s YOUR turn! If you EACH…GIVE….. 70% of the time…. it is hard to get to the point of: “I’ve done MY share”
Just my experience….
Your mileage may vary 🙂
Also, marriage is like a bank account that both spouses add to and withdraw from. If there is an imbalance where one draws out far more than they put in, the unfairness of it causes resentment, which can lead to the account being closed out (divorce). One exception would be an unhealthy relationship where a spouse tolerated, or was trapped by, abuse.
It’s funny, I sing a lot of funerals, and regardless of whether or not eulogies are allowed in the Catholic Church (they’re technically not as Memorial and Funeral Masses – not the same thing – are prayers for the dead), inevitably somebody gets up to talk about the deceased.
Not long ago, a stalwart member of the parish passed away and his son did the deed. This man was a great guy, and very involved with his family, etc. One story the son told was about his rehearsal dinner. His father pulled him aside and said, “Don’t keep score.” In watching my own family, that is a source of great conflict, and it’s not always among the married people, either.
As for God sending a spouse, sometimes no answer is the answer.
“…especially when the culture has shifted to the point that the battle of the sexes has turned incredibly toxic.”
The battle of politics has also entered into the dating scene, adding to the toxic mix.
It doesn’t matter what it is anymore. Disagree with someone, refuse to go along with the way THEY seem to think you should act, talk, dress, do your hair, etc., and you’re open for criticism. The concept of do unto others as you would have them do unto you is pretty much on the back burner unless there is a natural disaster involved.
When i was in my early twenties, I was dating a gal that I had been going steady with for a long while. We went into town to do some grocery shopping on Valentines Day. I had forgotten about until my girlfriend brought it to me at the store.
I checked my wallet. Empty.
I asked if I could borrow from her to buy a valentine card. She loaned me a couple of bucks, and I payed her back later on.
Truth is stranger than fiction…
Geesh!
“I had forgotten about it until my girlfriend brought it up to me at the store.”
N.O.T.U.N.A. S.A.D.
S.C.A.T.
Sad Cat Awareness of Tuna (Day) =^-^=
Please Give.
LOL — these were great!
I always loved the ad:
“Man in Maine wants to meet woman with sensible shoes.”
Nothing says love like: 1-800-FLOWERS.
Not-fully-bloomed flowers, grown in South America. Picked by exploited labor. Shrink-wrapped and boxed in generic purple boxes by machine. Flown on giant transit planes. Delivered to shipping hubs. Run through computer-controlled conveyor warehouses. Loaded on herds of trucks. Driven to generic neighborhoods. Left at front doors. Given as “surprises” thereafter. Wilted 3 days later. Composted in the fourth day. What joy!
I actually like getting flowers even if I’m allergic to them. For this event, though, there are not enough greenhouses in the US to actually grow the number to meet demand, and at this point in horticulture, many varieties of roses, for instance, were developed to hold the bud shape for the duration of their life.
Thankfully, there is an import system.
Note to Debbie Downer:
The flowers are the product of the thought and emotion that motivated the act. That we have created an import system that (a) gratifies the incidental and couch-sitting convenience of a obligatory act and then (b) outsources the wealth and technology that fulfills that guilt-motivated decision qualifies as nuclear enablement of narcissism.
Hencs, nothing says love like 1-800-FLOWERS.
Narcissus “Sorbet”
😀 <3 🙁
And wouldn’t the Muse of Love lead me to this incredibly timely and depressing snippet about what the current generation of narcissists refer to as “cuffing season” – an actual understood current cultural term. Apparently, it is a weather-related term that describes a “long-term” casual but monogamous relationship during the cold months that ends around Valentines Day. I guess thereafter you are free from the need to be “warmed” by a convenient body and your romps may be non-monogamous and unconfined to physical structures. I am confused and slightly nauseous.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/cuffing-season-meaning-origin?utm_campaign=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_source=wotd&utm_content=peoplearereading-lowerleft
Thats just awful. More “cool” terminology for one nighters that do nothing but keep a body busy while eviscerating your self worth.
Hmmm. Ironic, then, that the term SAD (or S.A.D.) is used for “Seasonal Affective Disorder”, a malady [a pretty girl is like a malady?] that does indeed affect people in northern climes, in particular those where Fall, Winter, and Spring tend to be overcast, cloudy, or rainy (OK, Ireland is that all year round). I can hear echoes of “Cuff ’em, Dan-O”… Here it’s more coughing than cuffing, at least at the moment. It could also explain the sometimes (often?) bizarre behaviour of those folks in the FAR north, e.g. the Scandanavian lands…
We had a friend who moved to the States from Germany because the cruddy weather here was depressing. And there are many others like that. I have to say that there are times I miss the weather of Kalifornistan, but not enough to make my family and me move back into that (now) hellhole.
The plethora of “Hallmark Holidays” is a *cough* sad reflection on today’s infinitely PC Kultur. Carly’s “perception is reality” has all but obliterated reality.
And THAT is truly sad.
Several people in my family are effected by seasonal affective disorder. I call November-February the dark months. March can be as well. Slogging through them has the trade off of April, May, September (some years) and October. June, July and August…lazy dog days best spent at the pool, or floating.
Variety, after all, is the spice of life.
I had a postcard with the “English Seasons”, similar to this one. Scotland’s a tad windier, but somehow the snow is colder and wetter in England (old Blighty) 😎
DP, we dont even do valentine’s day here. Mr gil doesnt acknowledge it. I just gave kiddo a card with stickers in his lunch. To “celebrate” last night, we got pizza. Papa johns had heart shaped cheese pizza that made him happy and I made little heart shaped brownies. Its not a day I ever cared much about either.
Oh, I used to care. When I was in grade school, we did the Valentine exchange thing. Some of the classics are now collector’s items.
My broader point is the objectification of those who are not in relationships.
They make lots of movies about it too. Its a made up greeting card holiday thats out of control like a lot of other things with spending and expectations. If priorities were set in many ways we wouldnt see the pressure anymore.
I prefer to think of it as an appropriated Christian feast day. That was how we celebrated it when I was a kid.
My idea of the best Valentine’s Day is real US garden-grown roses….
or homemade lovely steak dinner or dinner out in a fancy restaurant with a good chef, going for a hike in a beautiful national park or just sitting snuggled on a sofa watching a movie.
The rose is “Pretty Lady” – https://www.heirloomroses.com/pretty-lady-rosetm.html