| I hate Valentine’s Day | Send to a friend |
| Saturday, 11 February 2012 11:56 |
 By Cuthbert MahimboFlowers, dinner, romance, red dresses and shirts…what’s not to love about Valentine’s Day? This is the time of year that many women get excited about that 14th day of the second month. It is in every woman’s mind that this is the time when love should be demonstrated through roses, chocolates and dinner dates. Some online sources claim that Valentine’s Day was established by Pope Gelasius I in 496 AD, who decided to change an old fertility celebration called Lupercalis, which was held on 15 February, into a Christian feast in honour of St. Valentine, a third century Roman Martyr. He also changed the date of the celebration to 14 February. After the Roman Emperor, Claudius II, put a ban on marriage, Valentine did not agree with the ban and married couples in secret, but it was not long before Claudius found out about these secret marriages and imprisoned Valentine. While in prison Valentine became great friends with his jailor’s blind daughter and it is said that just before his execution he wrote a farewell message to her and signed it “From your Valentine”. It is thought that he was executed on 14 February 270 AD. She loves it, he loves it not Ever since then, women have embraced this lover’s day with open arms but men have felt the sharp sting of Cupid’s arrow. Even so, they are forced to accept the ‘holiday’ and go out of their way to make their ladies feel loved much to the detriment of their wallets. Most men view Valentine’s Day as a woman’s thing and their involvement in it is merely to please their wives and girlfriends – nothing more and nothing less. “I don’t look forward to Valentine’s Day,” says Cliff Mbawala, a loan officer at a commercial bank in Dar es Salaam. “You are forced to do something big and it’s always a command performance.” According to Cliff, Valentine’s seems to be a fake day because even women are not sure what exactly the day is all about. All they care about is receiving gifts from their men. Business oriented “I find it very business oriented, it is just another way for business people to make money,” says Cliff. On and around 14 February, hotels offer discounted rates on rooms for couples and boutiques bring in their yearly Valentine stock of red dresses and jewellery. For men, it is a very busy time for their wallets and ATM cards. Fred Lwila, a single man and student at the University of Dar es Salaam says he feels the pinch for his friends whenever Valentine’s is around the corner. “With the little stipend they have, they must satisfy their girlfriends by buying gifts. Personally, I wouldn’t do that, no matter what they say about sharing being caring,” says Fred. For many of the male persuasion, Valentine’s Day is about as much fun as having a gun put to their heads. It feels as if the women in their lives are saying, ‘show us how much you love us, or else!’ This puts them under a lot of pressure to perform because they realise that any lack of enthusiasm on their part will be detected often with dire consequences. Breaking point Peter Kamugisha, a 32-year-old businessman in Dar es Salaam will never forget Valentine’s Day last year, when his love life was cut short just because he went to visit his girlfriend without a gift. Straight from work, Peter drove to his girlfriend’s home to spend some time with her before bidding her a good night. He thought it was a day like any other but his girlfriend had ideas of her own. “I noticed that she sounded down but I didn’t know that my empty hands were the reason,” Peter says. After a while his girlfriend decided to say what was on her heart. She blamed Peter for not being a caring man. She told him how she expected to be taken out for dinner or even on a romantic trip to Zanzibar on that Val’s night but Peter was not gentleman enough to fulfil her dreams. “It’s a little contrived, more like an obligation than something I look forward to,” says Peter who reveals that from that day their relationship was in danger because he now believed that he was dating a materialist. The two are no longer together. Many couples have found themselves in a fight on Valentine’s Day just because some expectations were not met. Women tend to think that their men don’t love them just because they did not give them gifts to celebrate their love on lover’s day. Making women seem cheap It might seem that only men hate Valentine’s Day, but there are a few women in there too. Some of them feel that the day makes women seem very cheap because they can be ‘bought’ for the price of a Valentine’s gift. “If I could wave a magic wand, I’d wipe Valentine’s Day off the map,” says Rachel Mdachi, a businesswoman who owns a beauty centre in Sinza. According to her, women fall victim to unscrupulous men just because they are feeling all loved up on Valentine’s Day, but ultimately, they end up heart broken. “You find a single woman going away with a man because he bought her a gold bracelet on the day. You can’t get cheaper than that,” she says. Dar es Salaam NGO worker Frida Mhanga agrees. Frida reveals that last year some of her colleagues ordered flowers for themselves just to prove that they were lovable and had not been left out of the Valentine’s loop. “Every woman needs to be loved but sometimes Valentine’s make us act cheap. I can’t understand why this day has to be special,” says Frida, a mother of one. Putting relationships at risk But what women do not know is that there is a risk that men will decide that the stress and expectations of Valentine’s just isn’t worth it. They already prefer dating girls who are easy to please. “Going all-out for Valentine’s Day isn’t in a man’s nature,” says Bertha Fungo, a psychologist in Dar es Salaam. According to Fungo, for men, Valentine’s Day is the antithesis of what it means to be romantic. “Romance for them is all about a spontaneous expression of emotion, caring, devotion and creativity,” she says. Most men want to do something special for their woman, Fungo reveals, but the Valentine’s Day “baseline” prevents that. According to her the baseline is giving a woman something nice – dinner, new dress, flowers – but because a woman expects them, a man doesn’t score any points. This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites           |
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