My Red Day Reality

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day in Japan, but I'm not expecting to do or get anything. For those of you who are familiar with Japanese culture, you probably already know that here in Japan, the gift giving, lovey-dovey onus is on the women. They give the chocolates and the boys repay the favor later on White Day. But I don't know what married couples do.

I've never been a Valentine's Day person. In fact, I don't think I even know any Valentine's people. Every time I turn around, I hear someone complaining about how it's such a commercial holiday, or how you should show someone you love them every day of the year. Personally, I don't see anything wrong with having a special day to celebrate love, or to put it on a pedestal. And actually, I think it's a great time for guys, (in the U.S.) who are often embarrassed to do romantic things for their girlfriends, because it gives them a free pass to be sweet and not get too much flack for it. No one can fault a guy for being extra sentimental on Valentine's Day,  unless they want to end up looking like a lonely hater. 

That being said, I still don't care about Valentine's Day. Holidays in general are just annoying to me for whatever reason, and it seems to be getting worse with age. I'm not sure if To-ki's been thinking about it at all. He hasn't said anything, and he is really not the romantic type. He's very emotional, but not romantic. His idea of suave is sending 10 text messages saying "I love you" everyday. That probably comes from the fact that Japanese people aren't well known for saying "I love you" so directly or even so often, but it's actually kind of annoying, which I have told him before. But he just wants to say it, and say it often, and I can't really complain about something like that.

This will be our first Valentine's Day together which makes me feel guilty for not feeling any sort of way about it, but maybe something miraculous will happen and we will sweep each other off our feet. However, I don't even take the time to have a hot dinner of cup noodle ramen waiting for him when he gets home on a regular day, so the odds that a chubby cherub working overtime will convince me to try pulling off some 5-star meal in the name of romance are pretty slim, even with an arrow laced with love. And my husband is so clueless and paranoid about gift-giving and mood-setting that to even ask him to go through it would probably land Cupid in court for trying to inflict cruel and unusual punishment. So I expect tomorrow to be nothing special at all. But if anything wonderfully Disney-esque happens, I'll be sure to let ya'll know. After all, it is 2012 and I know a number of people are looking for signs of the end times. Something that crazy would surely be considered an omen from the Universe.