Alec Strenge

Happy Valentine’s Day to everyone! I can say it was happy for me because it was the first Valentine’s Day in a while that I didn’t have to spend a sick amount of money.

Girls always say they don’t care so much as long as your gift is from the heart. That is officially the biggest lie ever in the history of mankind. It’s like when you take your significant other out to eat. They always say they don’t care but you can be damn sure the places you pick will be wrong.

The way it really works is we suggest a place and then they get that look on their face and say, “No, I don’t really feel like eating there.” So after you’ve rattled off every place in town and driven around for 30 minutes, you end up finding out where they wanted to go all along and it’s usually the last place you thought of going. Say something to us, please!

Same is true for Valentine’s Day and it blows. They usually have a pretty good idea what they’d like but the thing is they’re not going to come right out and tell us. Most the time it comes to us guys in the form of subtle hints. If you happen to be fortunate enough to pick up on that, it still doesn’t guarantee you any success.

The reason there are no guarantees is that Valentine’s Day is merely a strange competition between women. When their girlfriends ask about the big day, they want sufficient reasons to brag about how sweet their boyfriends are.

This is the point where it gets tricky. There is always going to be that guy that screws everything up for you. “So what did you and Sean do for Valentine’s Day?” The friend replies, “Well, he took me to where we had our first date and we had a nice little meal. Then a helicopter flew overhead and it dropped in a life-size sculpture he made of us holding hands.” Thank you Fig nuts, now not only have you ruined Valentine’s for any guy associated with friends of your girlfriend but you’ve raised the expectation for next year. So thanks to that guy, all we get is a headache and an empty wallet and nothing to show for our efforts.

If you’re having a hard time understanding the whole competition thing, just force yourself to watch The Bachelor for five minutes. Half of the girls on the show don’t even like the guy but they get all crazy because of the competition. That is a fundamental difference between guys and girls: girls are catty and guys just don’t care. You could put any guy on that show and a third of the girls would be convinced they loved him after the second day.

The solution to the Valentine’s Day problem is simple: Get rid of it. Why is it that we need a special day to acknowledge the special people in our lives? Relationships are hard and it takes effort every day and the special person in your life should feel special every day. Guys, if you want to make a girl’s day, do something special on a random day for no other reason than you wanted to. Valentine’s Day is evil because it’s all about pressure. Caring about somebody shouldn’t have anything to do with pressure.

If we can’t get that plan worked out then we need to organize a giant guy convention to discuss our gifts and eliminate those suckers that go way over the top. Until then, gentlemen, we are just digging the hole deeper and making things harder on ourselves

Ladies, I encourage you to write nasty letters to the editor telling me how wrong I am. We need more people reading and writing to the paper. So feel free to lash out at me. I just dig seeing my name in print whether it’s good or bad. Peace out.

#1.885086:441351845.jpg:alecmug.jpg:Alec Strenge: