Hearty

Valentine's Day! It's a day to celebrate lovers! Or, more realistically, it's a day for women to celebrate lovers, or at least such romance as they have in their lives. As one internet commentator archly put it, Valentine's Day is a day when women hope that their man will give them poetry and chocolate and champagne and a romantic dinner and flowers and lingerie and jewellery and declarations of undying love, and men hope that their women will give them a resigned "okay".


As evidence that Valentine's Day is all about the girls, I give you http://iloveyoumorethanblank.com/, which as the title suggests is a website that allows contributors to state what they love their valentine more than. As the mast head says, "Paperwhite studio wants to depart from the cliche Valentines sentiment and find out the real things we use as a measuring stick for love."





So off we depart from the cliches of love! Or not, as the case may be. It turns out that cliches are cliches for a reason: most people measure their love against exactly same things. So much so that 90% of them fall into a handful of clearly defined categories.


I should add that all of the examples below are 100%, absolutely, horrifyingly genuine.


Category: The Starbucks Tragic

Examples:

I love you more than espresso, french roast, and venti soy hazelnut cappucinos.

I love you more than my morning cinnamon latte

I love you more than an iced grande two pump sugar-free vanilla one pump peppermint nonfat late.

I love you more than I love my grande white chocolate mocha with soy

Translation: I love you more than I love buggering up innocent coffee


Category: The Liberal Douche

Examples:

I love you more than an interesting interview on the Daily Show.

I love you more than fresh granola and yogurt.

I love you more than Obama who is my hero.

Translation: I love you more than being a self-righteous asshat. And I really love being a self-righteous asshat.


Category: The Tubby Self-Deluder

Examples:

I love you more than coke zero

I love you more than diet coke

I love you more than sugar-free ice cream.

Translation: You're not very good, but I tolerate you because I have to.


Category: The Apple 'Individual'

Examples:

I love you more than all the songs in my iPoddies

I love you more than I love my iTunes library.

I love you more than my ipod

I love you more than all the music in my Itunes library. That’s over 20 gigs worth, all for you.

Translation: I love you more than a common and well-marketed household appliance. Lucky you.


Category: The Non-Linguistic Communicator

Examples:

I love you more than buy a lot of underwaer

I love you more than I love may a bum a smoke.

I love you more than cachemire sweaters.

I love you more than steek.

Translation: I love you more than literacy.


Category: The Pathetic Valentine

Examples:

i love you more than i hate waiting for you to enter my life. please hurry!!

I love you more than I hate waiting for you to show up in my life. Whoeveryou are

I love you more than my need to hang on to our one-sided non-relationship in my head.

Translation: I love you more than my self-respect.


Category: The Trite Cineaste

Examples:

I love you more than we love the sisterhood of the traveling pants.

I Love You More Than Edward Loves Bella

I love you more than Jack loved Rose

Translation: I love you more than the movies which make my significant other want to tear his own eyes out.


Category: The Adventurous Gastronome

Examples:

I love you more than blueberry muffins and squirrels

I love you more than puppies and boiled peanuts

I love you more than Pikachu, cupcakes, and Ariel combined.

Translation: It's a challenging combination of flavours, but once you've tried it you'll never look back!


And the dominant category, by a significant margin...


Category: The Oestrogen Overload

Examples:

I love you more than Carrie loves her own Mr. Big.

I love you more than kitties.

I love you more than reading trashy novels in bed all day and night.

I love you more than I love rainbows.

I love you more than Frosted Pink Cupcakes

I love you more than 'unicorns'

I love you more than Gossip Girl, Friends and Gilmore Girls combined

i love you more than sparkles.

I love you more than I love purses.

I love you more than new shoes

I love you more than the yummiest choco fountain.

I love you more than a gucci bag + a $100000000000 shopping spree.

Translation: I love you more than I love putting the feminist movement back 40 years.


Oddly enough there was no "I love you more than Xbox", "I love you more than my Triton workbench" or "I love you more than monster truck demolition derbies". Perhaps we're saving those up for one of the more phallocentric celebrations, like the World Air Guitar Championships, Chuck Norris' Birthday, or 7 Meat Pizza Tuesdays.