Celebrating Valentine's Day - Keith Roulston editorial

So what can an old guy like me write that makes sense for younger readers on Valentine’s Day? How can I, having been married more than a half-century, know about young romance?

 

Only young romance matters these days as far as TV, movies and romance novels. All that matters is the people find each other, usually stumble at first, if not really squabble, and finally come together in a happily-ever-after moment that is the perfect ending to the romance.

 

What long-term couples like us know, is that’s just the beginning. You’re going to live many years beyond that precious moment when you commit to each other. There will be that period of romantic bliss, but then you have to adjust the life you grew up expecting to live to how your partner was brought up. You have the struggle of (probably both of you in this day and age) finding and keeping jobs in sometimes turbulent times. Then, perhaps, of your wife being pregnant and then the couple becoming a family – a change that will forever alter the dynamics of the relationship. 

 

Along the way temptations will arise – particularly on the male side of the partnership but sometimes on the female. Perhaps these are resolved, but on the other hand, Jill and I have watched as brothers and sisters on both sides of the family have married three times each.

 

Hopefully, the many supporters of former U.S. President Donald Trump don’t follow his example when it comes to romantic partners. He’s had three wives plus plenty of lovers.

 

The world has changed since Jill and I were married so long ago. Back then, the birth-control pill was still new on the market and some doctors were reluctant to prescribe it to people who weren’t married. Abortions still weren’t fully available until 1988 in Canada. Not that couples abstained from sex. There were two cases in my family of couples hurrying marriage because of unanticipated pregnancy.

 

Perhaps because of this, we were ready to change our situation, quickly. We met in the spring of 1968, just before my 21st birthday and were married before my 22nd. I was still in university. Jill got an office job to support us until I graduated.

 

Oh how the world has changed since those days. We’re watching a Netflix comedy series right now where the young star discovers he has a venereal disease and he sets out to inform all the many, many females he has been sexually involved with over the years. As he slowly tracks them down, we also see the equivalent sexy females jumping into bed with his horny male roommate. 

 

But in the whole Valentine’s Day story in the romantic movies, sex is only a hidden temptation. Oh, perhaps not as hidden today as it once was.  Depending on the storyteller, such as the one telling me the story I watched last night, the couple may hop into bed with the eventual romantic partner, but then there is always some disagreement that drives them apart, only to come back together in the final scene.

 

The thing that I’ve noticed, when I turn on the news on a favourite channel on a weekend and catch the tail-end of a screen romance, is that the couples are considerably older than the romantic partners we chose when I was dating. Obviously, these couples are older and (supposedly) wiser, having had much more romantic experience. But of course, they aren’t. If you watch similar shows programmed for teenagers, they’re making the same mistakes.

 

The most famous romantic couple, of course, is William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, both approaching their 16th birthdays when they fall for each other. Since both end up dead, modern romantic couples suffer minor romantic affliction when they simply break up.

 

Of course we’re taught to embrace Valentine’s Day. From the time we start school we’re trained to hand out Valentines to everyone of the opposite sex, if not plain everyone, every Feb. 14. We’re used to getting our hearts broken, too, as I recall the girl I particularly adored in Grade 1 had no interest in me.

 

We’ve had many years of training about Valentine’s traditions by the time we reach high school. The Valentine’s Day industry has  reaped a considerable haul from us already, but the tradition is just starting. Flowers become a big gift in the middle of winter, as thousands of gallons of jet fuel are burned flying bouquets to frigid climates.

 

And then, of course, there are the romantic dinners at restaurants. And finally, the expensive engagement rings. What better time to give one than on such a romantic holiday? 

 

So, happy Valentine’s Day.  Hope I haven’t made you feel like a pawn of all sorts of greedy entrepreneurs along the way.
For all the opportunism, we still fall in love, and even after a half-century of marriage, romance holds meaning. Happy Valentine’s Day.