I wrote a Valentine’s Day poem:
Roses are red
Violets are blue
Or are they? I mean I wouldn’t know because this year, like every year, no one sent me any
So fuck you
It’s been a big week for news this week. Scientists announced the successful observation of ripples in the fabric of space-time first predicted by Einstein a century ago. Western diplomats agreed to a cessation of hostilities in Syria. Jeremy Hunt changed the first letter of his surname by deed poll. But I think I can confidently say that if I had received a Valentine’s Day greeting of any kind, the major news outlets would have held their front pages for the story.
Violets are blue
Or are they? I mean I wouldn’t know because this year, like every year, no one sent me any
So fuck you
It’s been a big week for news this week. Scientists announced the successful observation of ripples in the fabric of space-time first predicted by Einstein a century ago. Western diplomats agreed to a cessation of hostilities in Syria. Jeremy Hunt changed the first letter of his surname by deed poll. But I think I can confidently say that if I had received a Valentine’s Day greeting of any kind, the major news outlets would have held their front pages for the story.
You might conclude from this opening that I am bitter about my singleness. (A bitter, ageing queen, surely not?) But I can honestly say I’m not. You might also conclude that the fact I’m spending my Valentine’s Day writing a blog about how I’m not bitter about my singleness is surely the purest example of methinksshedothprotesttoomuchification you’ve ever witnessed. To that I simply say I WILL KEEP SECOND GUESSING EVERY POSSIBLE COUNTER AGRGUMENT UNTIL YOU LEAVE ME ALONE.
Now, I spend a lot of my life being embarrassed. It comes with being a ridiculous person. Weekend mornings are particularly difficult. Typically I’ve done something middlingly to extremely embarrassing the night before, and usually I don’t really remember the ins and outs of whatever it was, just a general uneasy sense that I’ve demeaned myself in some way. But unlike most people who do embarrassing things, I’ll then usually set out to make it exponentially worse for myself by either telling anyone who’ll listen about it in slightly exaggerated detail, or Tweeting about it. Sometimes I’ll even write a blog post about it.
But even by my standards this blog post is going to be embarrassing. I mean I’m physically cringing even as I type. Ouch. But I have to write it because, like all of my opinions, it’s important the world knows I’m right about this. So here goes…
The fact is I’m afraid I’m just one of those awful people who basically fundamentally believes… I’m ok being single. I’m happy. I know, I hate me too.
The reason I think it’s important to say this, and I really do actually, is that, the more I think about it, the more I think that the war against happy-being-single-ness is all part of the Patriarchy’s Master Plan To Keep Us All Down.
You may think I’m being facetious. (A facetious ageing queen, surely not). But I’m really not. I promise. I mean let’s talk about Valentine’s Day. Valentine’s Day, to me, is like Jeremy Clarkson: it’s one of those things that, whenever I speak to any right-minded intelligent person about they’re like “I know: awful. Don’t get it. Why is it allowed? How is it still A Thing?” and yet, when I look around me, it’s still there. Everywhere. It’s on telly. People buy merchandise because of it. But OBViously it’s an abomination. I can only conclude that it continues to exist because it makes someone, somewhere loads of money.
But more sinister even than this is the government-sanctioned war of attrition against happy single people. Three ubiquitous words sum up this crusade against us: “hard working families”. If I had to sum up everything I am not about in three words (and I wasn’t allowed “postponing washing up”) these would probably be them.
Think about it. Happy single gay people are basically everything Tories hate: happiness, singleness, deviancy and being a human – all rolled into one. I am their nightmare.
Of course I wouldn’t know anything about any of this but I’ve heard that on average, happy single gay people are statistically more likely to have casual sex, take intoxicating substances, support progressive political movements, spend pink pounds on frivolous frippery, and generally misbehave. And when word gets out, standard straight people might start to get itchy. What could be more poisonous to the establishment? Obviously, in order to maintain the status quo, the privileged straight white male elite of this country need us to be sedated and stultified into forgetting to care about anything. That’s why the Tories let us have gay marriage of course. Normalise us. Silence us. Well. I will not be fooled. (I mean, obviously: no one will marry me).
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not against the idea of being in a relationship. Or even monogamy. Mainly because I know full well that in five years’ time I’m gonna have to increase my Grindr Age (can’t be “29” forever) and then how am I gonna have sex if I haven’t locked someone down already? But I just don’t think it’s a prerequisite to happiness. It can’t be. Because I’m tres happy, and I am SO SINGLE right now.
I will admit to occasionally thinking it would be nice to have someone to share things with. It is a burden having to eat a whole tub of Ben and Jerrys alone. But for every occasion I think it would be nice to have someone by my side (hashtag fuckingweddings) there’s at least one where I think “thank god I have the freedom to do this alone”. Masturbation can be really fun.
So, Patriarchy, I have a message for you: You can charge all the single supplements you like, deny us tax breaks, ban poppers, advertise Valentine’s Day, inflate the house price bubble so no one can afford to live alone, recommisson Take Me Out, allow Neil Patrick Harris to get married… but I will continue to defy you by being happy and having more fun than you. Yeah, that’s right Cameron: I’m still having fun. So there. *Sticking out tongue emoji*.
Still, would it kill you to send me some fucking violets every once in a while?
