When Love Isn’t Enough- By Reuben Abati

It is that time of the year again in the month of February, when there is so much talk and excitement about romance and love, all in preparation for that special day dedicated to love, romance and dalliance, this very day, Valentine’s Day.  The romantic propaganda can be really oppressive. In the past few days for example, GSM service providers have insisted that the only ring tone that fits this season is the one that forces you to think of romance, just in case you may have forgotten. I didn’t solicit for the ringtone, but I got it all the same and I have had to listen to it, on other people’s lines, and I guess it doesn’t come free.

The GSM companies are making money selling Valentine messages. And that is the point: the frenzy over Valentine’s Day is commercial, capitalistic, and it is of course, global.  In the United States, even the White House is not left out, with the First Lady composing a poem for President Barack Obama on this special occasion. It is all mushy, lovey-dovey stuff. The eventual beneficiaries are the business outfits that produce printing cards, shirts, chocolates, cakes, the restaurants that will probably remain open till Feb. 15, not to talk of the companies that will benefit from the many phone calls, e-mails and text messages.

Sometimes, I find Valentine’s Day a bit suffocating, feminist, and discriminatory. This year’s celebration falls on a Sunday, otherwise it would also have been observed in schools including nursery and kindergarten schools. On a school day, all the pupils would have been instructed to dress up in red colour and to bring gifts for their friends.  The children are innocent but their teachers, especially in the private schools, initiate them into this annual ritual. Last year, there was so much red colour blinding the eyes on the streets. I also saw old men and women, even widows, joining the celebration, refusing to be left out of their share of the love in the air.  And later in the day of course, the restaurants usually take over and the ultimate show of chivalry is for a man to be seen taking his Valentine for candle-lit dinner, or to go on his knees and pop the question, or to exchange wedding vows on this special day.

It is as if this is the only day meant for love, and the flow of affection is generally understood around here to be from man to woman. The emphasis is not even on pure, unadulterated love; but physical romance. In everything there is a suggestion among the younger generation that a Valentine’s Day expression of love is the truest form of affection, which it is not.  The overwhelming focus on purchasing power as a measure of love and affection makes it worse.  This has resulted in some commentators lamenting that given the economic austerity in the land, Valentine’s Day this year may not be as exciting, because as the common saying goes, “there can be no romance without finance!”. In the past, a poem or a letter or a bouquet of flowers would do, but I hear, not anymore. Our new age Nigerian ladies no longer read love letters, nor are they interested in poetry- those forced rhymes and sweet nothings meant to make the heart flutter don’t seem to work anymore.  

These days, I have heard such comments as: “we have not received salary, how man go take do Valentine?” and I have seen a cartoon in which a husband tells his wife that they will be better off spending the whole day in church! It is perhaps more advisable to celebrate Agape, church love than to dig a hole in the pocket and tell stories that touch the heart later.

I am not against anyone celebrating love, but the desperation, the heartache and the sheer anxiety that now attends Valentine’s Day is a bit over the top. People should not have to borrow or rob a bank to prove that they love a woman. And this whole thing about romantic love is curious. In any relationship at all, physical love is not enough. It takes a lot more to build relationships.

It should be possible to spend Valentine’s Day