VD Schadenfreude

(C) 2010 Stan Spire


OK, better late than never. Anyway, commenting on holiday bullshit is timeless.

Almost every Xmas season you'll see an article in the newspaper about avoiding holiday stress or dealing with depression while everyone is so happy.

No, this ain't about Xmas but a more recent holiday that's almost as irritating: Valentine's Day.

I came across an article in a woman's magazine about Valentine's Day and the single woman who lacks a soulmate. Now I don't normally read women's mags but sometimes I'll glance at one to see what crap is being fed to the opposite sex, trying to understand why today's modern woman might have her head screwed on but it's up her ass.

Cosmo magazine and their ilk get women all worked up with such nonsense as "abandonment issues" and other pop psychology fads. Some of the articles are fake: the writer will make up people to illustrate a point. So when the reader sees a quote from "Galadriel," a young married woman from a conservative town in Oklahoma who suffers from female sexual dysfunction, that person might exist only in the mind of the magazine's so-called "journalist."

In other articles the writer just pulls stuff out her backside to fit in with the theme and fill space.

The article I just stomached in a local woman's mag gave a list of tips for a single lonely woman to handle her companionlessness on the most romantic of holidays. One suggestion was not to ridicule VD, don't say it's a stupid holiday, expressing sour grapes. Apparently a lonely woman is supposed to embrace the happiness of couples around her and just admit that she's a loser.

Then the writer makes this statement:

"Stop assuming you are missing out. You do not know the real nature of people’s relationships. Sometimes couples end up going through the motions on Valentine’s Day."

If she just kept following that train of thought, providing a practical suggestion. Instead of feeling sad about not celebrating VD, a lonely woman could stay home and enjoy vicious fantasies about couples being trapped in desperate, loveless relationships, partners just pretending to be happy. Maybe each one has been cheating and they exchange venereal diseases. VD VD.

The German word for this is schadenfreude. A better way to get through another pain-in-the-ass holiday than following useless tips from a dumb blonde article.