Iranians heart Valentine's Day

It’s indicative of how dangerous and misguided the Iranian regime is in that they’re permitting the observance of a decadent Western holiday and it’s not St. Patrick’s Day.

You guessed it. It’s Valentine’s Day.

Let me go on record as saying I really love Valentine’s Day!

I think there should be at least one day every month where couples are encouraged to express their affections with candy, flowers and poetic odes to one another.

I declare that up there in the third paragraph because I’m fairly certain my darling wife never reads past the fourth.

To me, Valentine’s Day’s always been fraught with coy deception. Why can’t people just be direct?

I remember when I was younger and all the girls would give me Valentine’s Day cards saying how much they liked me.

Well, why the hell did they have to wait until Valentine’s Day to say so? Why couldn’t they just say, “Hey, you’re cute. Let’s go get drunk and rip each other’s clothes off and let the games begin.”

But maybe that was expecting too much from a bunch of fourth graders.

One of the problems with a holiday devoted to romance is that it often leads to love, marriage, and that thing about the baby carriage. Thus, if taken to its logical conclusion, the holiday meant to celebrate romance results in the responsibilities most likely to squash any chance it’ll ever happen again.

I’m surprised some marketing genius hasn’t thought up a reverse Valentine’s Day for divorcees. They could have it on August 14. Larry King could Skype host.

This sounds cynical but, really, it would be a great way for divorcees to meet and maybe plant the seeds for another spectacular break-up. I predict some savvy divorce attorney’s going to jump all over this.

Divorce and disharmony have run virus-like through my friends and family this year. Many couples who have known and loved one another for 10, 20 years have said enough’s enough.

Complacency, unrealized expectations and a primal urge to stray are just a few of the reasons for the bitter splits.

I think we’d all be better off de-emphasizing romance whether it be between a man and a woman, a man and a man, a woman and a woman, a 9th grade teacher and her 14-year-old student, etc.

“Love isn’t an emotion, it’s a decision.”

I heard that at a convention of people with an abnormally high rate of divorce: Lightning strike survivors!

It’s true. I was covering the convention for a men’s magazine about 10 years ago. It was held in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. My suggested/rejected headline: “The Smoked in the Smokies.”

The woman’s point was we treat our relationships the way we do Lifetime movies. We expect one spouse or the other to always be up to something, we create a lot of unnecessary drama and we start to fidget if it’s not all over in a couple hours.

What Iran’s doing by tolerating Valentine’s Day is a mystery. I suppose you could argue it’s a case of one repressive regime nurturing another.

After all, these tyrants are very controlling. They don’t want you to do what you want when you want or with whom you want.

And I’m talking here, of course, about the Iranian clerics, not marriage or otherwise loving and monogamous relationships between people (pets don’t count).

Because the last thing I’d want to do on a day renown for tender couplings is sow seeds of discontent.

I guess what I’m trying to say is simply this:

I love Valentine’s Day!

I really, really do.