COLUMN: Finding new definitions of romance

From: Nathan Smith's, "Just Skip to the Crossword," Fall '97 From: Nathan Smith's, "Just Skip to the Crossword," Fall '97 All the telltale signs of Valentine's Fay are here. Suicide rates have risen dramatically; chocolate boxes are on display at interstate truckstops across the nation; and it's butt-freezing cold outside. Also, it's February. Anyone who knows how to interpret these signs knows the time has come for snuggling up to that significant other on a synthetic bearskin rug in front of the central heating duct. With the advent of the fitness craze, chocolates are a no-win situation. You could buy good chocolates and attach a note saying "Here honey, these have eighty grams of fat each, so enjoy!" The alternative, fat-free chocolate, might as well be sent with a little note saying "Hope this will help you shed the unsightly butt fat." Hard economic times have rendered the dinner date with hotel room unaffordable, and the only available substitute for students (two Big Macs and a night in Stouffer) hardly has the same effect. So where does that leave romance? Unless we define our own special gestures of romance, we will be forced to relegate this holiday to children like other holidays. We all remember kindergarten where we wrote our classmates' names on the backs of twenty identical Valentine cards and stuck them in envelopes taped to our friends' desks. The best you could hope for was one of those cards with a heart-shaped sucker stuck through it. It didn't exactly make your heart flutter since everyone in the class got one just like it. As it stands, kids are the ones targeted for most holiday novelties, so one might consider throwing Valentine's Day to them as well. They get to wear the Power Rangers Halloween costumes, lose control over Christmas gifts, hunt Easter eggs, play April Fool's joke, and yes, exchange Valentines. So why not give the whole thing up as another childish ritual? It certainly would take some of the pressure off those of us who remain single. But I don't believe we should allow kids to get this holiday like they have so many others. It is the only fun holiday for mature adults (except maybe Flag Day). Furthermore, it provides happy couples an excuse for an all night sex marathon (as if they needed one). Finally, if the only valentines exchanged had pictures of Barney on them, we could all bow our heads for the death of romance. So where can we turn for ideas? The most easily accessible source would be television, but it has little to offer in originality. It tends either to stick with the same old cliches, or to depict characters who use cheesy lines that sound romantic in order to fool rich widows and take their money. In the latter, one romantic twist has been reused again and again in sitcoms and soap operas. Young man/woman starts dating an old/ugly/fat/generally lame man/woman because the pursuant romantic must do so in order to join some exclusive club. Then the pursuant lover actually falls in love with the old/ugly/boring/fat/balding woman/man. Subsequently this scheme is somehow discovered by the unfortunate victim. Then the perpetrator apologizes, performs some task proving the truth of his/her affections, and all is forgiven. This plot has been recycled more times than Budweiser cans. The wonderful thing about this type of romance comes at the resolution, when all is forgiven just in time for the credits to roll. The audience never sees the years following when the individual realizes the lover whom he/she has completely forgiven must in fact be entirely untrustworthy and shallow, not to mention incurably stupid. So television seems somehow inappropriate as a role model for real romance. Where else can we turn? My answer is sickeningly simple. We must look to our significant other. The person you may wish to honor on Valentine's Day is unlike any of the cliches typically employed in romance. If he or she seems that common to you, you probably should seek someone a bit more exciting. No, that individual has very unique desires and dreams which are better fulfilled through original means of love expression. If he or she is crazy and reckless, go rappel off of Grad B. If he or she is a bit more tame, curl up on the couch for a romance film (but don't watch; just smooch for an hour and a half). At first glance flowers seem a bit cliched, but you can specialize these by picking the species of flora that reminds you of him or her. I must warn you to avoid crabgrass and plastic flowers no matter how much they remind you of your love. My preference falls to the aloe plant, for like love it soothes and cools your pains. I suppose I haven't produced any new rules for romance. These are generally common sense suggestions for individualizing your expressions of love. They are relevant considerations, given that Americans are overwhelmed with cliches, cliques, fads and similar cultural phenomena which tend to group people in homogenous masses. We might as well make Valentine's Day the special day for recognizing a loved one as unique, special and deserving of treatment the likes of which no other sweetheart will recieve.