Could V.D. Kill You?

Another Valentine's Day has come and gone. I resent this day more every year, whether or not I have a "valentine". If I have someone special in my life, I get nervous that the day will be a disappointment or an outright disaster (and it has often been; some of the most hideous arguments I have ever been a part of came on this day), AND I feel bad for all the lonely people. When I'm single, Valentine's Day just seems like a flat-out cruel joke with its relentless advertising, special restaurant menus and pervasive displays of provocative lingerie. I just keep my head down and plow through it. Can anyone explain this paradox to me: why is there this ubiquitous sentiment these days that it's okay to be single, a solitary person, modernly mateless at the moment-backed up by statistics claiming that currently more than half of all households are inhabited by unmarried singular human units-yet there continues a deeply cultivated aura of judgement in our culture that unless you are part of a couple, you are somehow sad, incomplete or downright odd? I fear that it is a conspiracy concocted by the married perpetually miserables to cover their collective suffering. I mean, how many marrieds wish they were not any more? Based on my informal observations, at LEAST 50 percent. How many unmarrieds wish that they were? Many, yes, but these days certainly not 50 per cent or more. Which brings me to a better point: If only we could get off this treadmill of always wanting what we don't have, then getting it, then not wanting it any more. We're like Sneetches going through the Star On and Star Off machines in our perpetual desire to acquire and to shed; star on, star off, star on, star off... I wish Sylvester McMonkey McBean would pack up his machines and go home.