Valentine's Day - Laughing at Love

It’s February, the month designed to make one acutely aware of romantic deficiencies in the same way that December is designed to make one aware of financial lack. Tomorrow is Valentine's Day. Predicated as it is on the oddly amusing notion that romantic love can be scheduled, like an oil change, its popularity is remarkable. But, to paraphrase the comedienne Cathy Ladman, “Love is difficult. Love is like a 5,000 piece jigsaw puzzle - all sky.” Love needs all the help it can get.

Just as Christmas can create an overhang of financial regret, so, too, can Valentine’s Day create an overhang of personal regret for those succumbing to the social pressure to mark this occasion out of a sense of obligation, a similar flurry of unwrapping, ill-disguised disappointment, and months of paying for a gift given and quickly regretted. A cynic might say that we rush into relationships as a way to distract ourselves from the fact that we're always alone with our thoughts. I might be that cynic.

But how many presents would actually be given if not for Christmas and birthdays? What if it does take a sense of social panic to prompt us to express what we ought to spontaneously and rather compulsively express without prompting? Perhaps the key is to take love more seriously than you take yourself - or even your lover. In that spirit, here is some delightful humor, excerpted from Joke Soup, with love from R World.

ABC News says Americans spend $300 billion every year on games of chance, and that doesn’t include weddings and elections.
- Argus Hamilton

My wife insists on turning off the lights when we make love. That doesn’t bother me. It’s the hiding that seems so cruel.
- Jonathan Katz

Dating in your twenties is like getting a science project. “What did you get? I got an alcoholic; I’m going to change him!”
- Carline Rhea

I’ve been on so many blind dates I should get a free dog.
- Wendy Liebman

Breaking up. It happens kind of suddenly. One minute you’re holding hands walking down the street – and the next minute you’re lying on the floor crying and all the good CDs are missing.
- Kennedy Kasares

I’m still going on bad dates, when by now I should be in a bad marriage.
- Laura Kightlinger

Men date thin girls because they’re too weak to argue and salads are cheap.
- Jennifer Fairbanks

I’m dating a guy who’s twenty-one. That’s seven in boy years.
- Lisa Goich

Remember, we’re all in this alone.
- Lily Tomlin