It’s Monday. It’s February 14. There is an arrow aimed at some people and machine guns aimed at others. I haven’t had a real relationship with anyone in G-d only knows how long, but I know it’s more than a decade. So Valentine’s day, which to me is a greeting card holiday, is pretty much just a sick joke, where those who have significant others can rub it in the faces of those that don’t. I never had the woman behind me that has been sorely needed, as I came up in an era of shoe-gazing, riot Grrrls, and staunch lesbian feminazism. On top of that, I sometimes have a problem where I come across as creepy.
Now, I don’t blame any women for any of my problems. If anything, having them around more would’ve been a very nice thing. Unfortunately for me, most of the parties I attend or get invited to are usually sausage-fests, and let’s face it, I’m a fat, hairy guy with wild, staring eyes, a loud voice, many feelings of inadequacy, and general shyness. Not exactly qualities women are looking for in their potential mates. In fact, The last date I had felt more like a job interview I wasn’t expecting, for a job I know they won’t hire me for, in part because I’m just not qualified.
Last week, I revealed a secret that perhaps I shouldn’t have, but since I never meant it seriously, and everyone knows that, I think I’m ok. The truth is, that my friends are the best friends I could have, and without them I’d probably have been dead for several years now. Or living somewhere other than Montreal. It’s my friends that have made my life worth living, especially since I’m still prone to prolonged bouts of depression and other problems.
Some of my friends have also been known to wreck it for me. This is usually unconscious on their part, but since I’m thought of as “friends with this guy”, or that guy, who has whatever qualities they don’t like, I’m automatically guilty by association. I’m 35 and I live like a college student instead of a married guy with kids. Sometimes I feel truly pathetic.
As many of you may already know, I like to consider myself as an artist, but I know I can be temperamental, finicky, and sometimes violently destructive. I would like to thank my friends for bearing with me through all the thick and all the thin that my moods/wallet/temperament has gone through. Through the periods of work and unemployment, through the periods of wealth and poverty, and then into the proverbial overtime the game will inevitably go into.
By the way, I also associate St. Valentine’s day with the massacre, because prohibition was and still is a very stupid thing, which gave rise to organized crime rings comprised, in part, of otherwise legitimate businessmen. These businessmen were ambushed and slaughtered on this day, back in 1929, in Chicago. The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. The criminals involved in the liquor trade during prohibition evolved into criminal syndicates, assorted mafia and the families thereof, who needed to protect themselves and were occasionally forced into crime by unscrupulous and overzealous policemen, politicians and lawyers.
Photo by (/-\)nniina Loves U / Anniina Mäkelä
