I'd be a pirate for the booty. And the outfit.

When you start a blog entitled, "Cultural Confusion," you know full well that you are obligated to post a commentary regarding the most confusing of all holidays, Valentine's Day. However when you're as repulsed by cliches as I am, you have to wait until February 16 to write about Valentine's Day.

Oh Valentine's Day. El dia de san valentine. What to do with such a day. No one knows really. If you're in love (or what you think is love--really, 7 times out of 10 you're not in love it's just a strange combination of hormones, weather patterns, and manipulative behavior tricking your subconscious) you're frantically looking for a relationship appropriate gift for your significant other. If you're not in love you frantically avoid malls, florists, jewlers, television and anyone who looks slightly happy. I fall in the latter--though I think there are varying degrees to each reaction of this holiday.

But I don't really want to talk about Valentine's Day since that day is over--I want to talk about what the day represents. Love.

I don't understand love. This fact doesn't bother me as it bothers some. We are constantly bombarded with false images of love. The media sees to that. And the thing is--that's fine--as long as you don't buy into it and think that you too can go on a show and make a man fall in love with you instead of the other 24 girls and he'll propose to you and then have a very public break up--but that's ok--because if you break up that just means you get to be the very next Bachelorette. For the record I don't respect, trust or like any woman who would go on the Bachelor. Even that sweet, kind of dumb kindergarten teacher from a couple years back.

People bitch and complain about how romance is dead, chivalry is dead, relationships are dead. Cry cry cry. Valentine's Day inevitably gets me thinking about relationships. I have a more negative view on relationships but I think I can muster up a little bit of objectivity.

I think you need to start out with what love actually is. We've had a complete cheap-ification (you can make up words if you have your own blog) of love. There are websites, dating services, doctors, psychiatrists, shops, mega-stores, movies, t.v. shows, etc. etc. dedicated to getting people love. Love, like everything else, has become an industry. A means to profit. And all these methods for obtaining love come with some sort of Disney Fairy Tale sticker on it that you'll fall in love and it'll be forever.

Such a lie.

People act like love is the end all be all of relationships. I think love is an extremely preliminary aspect of relationships. Because the thing is love wears off. It does. I don't care what anyone tries to tell you--the newness and 'love'liness of it wears off and what you're left with are two very flawed people that share a living space.

I think that if I have to (I mean if someone ties me up and drugs me and binds me and hits me in the head so I forget everything I believe in) be in a relationship--I think the thing I would look for is committment. Not so much love. Committment. Because on the days that aren't so good--the days that actually really suck--I don't want someone to lie to me and say they love me anyway. Because I hate that. I hate that line and I hate that crap and come one--there are days that we're entirely unlovable. I don't want the lie. I just want to know that they'd stick around for a better day.

I think love is a choice. I'm sick of people saying it isn't. I think we have more say in our lives than people let on and saying things like 'you can't help the way you feel,/don't feel' are just ways to shrug off responsibility for our actions.

Anyway. This post bordered on seriousness. No worries. I'll get back to making fun of Larry the Cable Guy and James Vanderbeek quite soon. Sometimes you just need to get things off your chest.