All I Want For Valentine’s Day Is Sex
Things aren’t going so well. For various reasons that I won’t get into because even I am not sure how they’re all going to play out, I am not in a place where I feel super-Valentiney this year. There are times at which all you want to do is get someone a dozen roses and whatever chocolate is a step up from a Whitman’s sampler, but now is not one of those times. As the crumpled, tear-stained mass I occasionally refer to as my “love life” implodes in on itself with the pressure of a dying star, I am not trying to complicate things further as The Big Day arrives.
I just want sex.
Does that make me weird? I know that everyone can get into that pre-holiday crisis mode where all of a sudden you look around at your news feed and everyone seems to be incredibly happy and rubbing it in your face specifically, but I feel like the usual response is to curl up with some chocolate to scream at a rom-com a la Elle Woods in the first few minutes of Legally Blonde. We have been conditioned to think that if our real-life relationship status reads “it’s complicated” or the dreaded “single,” the only appropriate answer is to just be sad for a few days and remind ourselves that some people are lonely on every holiday, and not just this one.
But not me — I’m trying to get laid. I just want one of those nights of sex with someone where you know that nothing is really going to come of it, and things don’t have to be any more complicated than this, and you probably aren’t even going to remember their name in a day or two. It doesn’t mater. It’s just sex. We get so wrapped up in these ideas that relationships have to be complex, and involved, and last over the span of months and years — we forget that sometimes, we can just fuck.
And when everything is going wrong in what is supposed to be your personal life — the thing that is, in an ideal world, the respite from all of the problems and work and with your stupid landlord and your irritating neighbors and the daily commute — it’s so easy to forget that sometimes encounters can just be simpleand fun. I feel like I am drowning in a sea of problems, and potential break-ups, and crippling fears of being the person without a plus one to attend yet another friend’s wedding — but I could also just have sex.
I could let go of everything and be caught up in a moment of completely selfish pleasure. I could be most concerned with at what point am I going to get my earth-sattering orgasm and head home, even if that means I have to do part of the work myself. I don’t have to care about hurting feelings. I could even forget feelings exist at all — getting a little buzzed and taking all of your clothes off with an attractive near-stranger tends to have an erasing effect on all of the minor stresses that tend to obstruct our vision.
I could have everything and nothing at the same time, just get lost in a little bit of sex on Valentine’s Day and remember that it is only a holiday. That there’s nothing to be scared of. That two people coming together can be fun, and sexy, and have a very clear expiration date. Not everything romantic must drag on forever, and be inherently painful, and leave you wanting something that will never come. Sometimes it can just be hot, and there’s no need to make it anything more than that.