LOVE IS IN THE AIR

But hello, some of us prefer oxygen…

And so pretty soon itll be Valentines Day. And let me warn you smug, settled twosomes out there, as you wait in anticipation of that sickening waist thickening box of chocolates or the bourgeois frigid roses imported from Copenhagen,which could single – rosedly fund a meal for twenty five local IDP’s….. – that I’m about to attack your comfortable bubble of contentment, and rather rudely at that.

And lest you conclude that I am commenting with the jaded attitude of someone who cant get into this rosy state, let me declare that I have been there, done that Ive reached that stage where I actually find it funny(thats Ally for you) which could be why, the last time someone extremely suitable gathered up the courage to propose suit to me, I actually burst into helpless laughter and had to change the subject in case he took offence. (You can be sure he didn’t do it again)
Its not that I have any thing against romance, its just that there are so many excellent reasons to remain in blessed singledom, a FEW of which Im going to list below:

Benefit Number One : Peaceful Slumber.
My slumber is now truly peaceful and unruffled since the date around four years ago when I last extricated myself from the deep and emotionally charged partnership I was in . It is now only broken occasionally by comparatively desperate insomniacs who are in the thick of intense and committed long term relationships and thus on the verge of suicide / self mutilation and/ or serious damage to property due to some profoundly convoluted argument stemming from a basic disagreement as to who should take out the garbage. So I refer to my otherwise redundant MEN ARE FROM MARS Manual and groggily read out a few basics before I turn the bedside light off and lapse back into happy oblivion. IN case of further disturbance my Nokia has an excellent function which silences further calls from any particular number so that I can view them with detached fascination the next morning and speculate clinically at the varying occurrences of attempted contact, 2 am, 3am 5 am etc.
Let me blow my trumpet a bit here, but I admit to higher levels of EQ and a good telephone voice – both of which combine to result in me being something of an agony aunt to my friends and contacts, although some of the advice I give would definitely not be sanctioned by the Samaritans or even the local Police come to think of it (“so what, hit him back!” or “ Why not adopt a cat – TODAY! Or : “Hey you need to watch BORAT it’ll take your MIND off things…”)
But what does one do when faced with mind-boggling conundrums like:
Aunty Al, shes driving me nuts, she smashed the Flatron today…. Or,
Aunty Al, I love him but I don’t like sex …or
Aunty Al, I think she’s having an affair with a tuktuk driver ,what do I do ? or
Aunty Al, I love her but she doesn’t like sex…and last but not least-
WOTS A G SPOT *


Benefit Number Two : Sheer Independence :
Guys this is one for you. You can work late, get sloshed, get delayed or get laid and you don’t have to explain it to anyone. You can fill your USB drive with hardcore pornography and you don’t need to justify it. And you retain rights to your phone and gmail inboxes. Holidays are something you can actually look forward to, where you RELAX , not drive someone around to in law dinners.Have I given those committed family dudes a slight pang here….?

Benefit Number Three No more faking it
Lets be honest about this girls, we love them but we need only about a quarter of the actual physical intimacy they do. The rest of the time we have to not just grin and bear , but fake it convincingly and there’s the worry about what would happen if we don’t. The onus is on us to get them to stick to one supplier and it gets harder with the years. And then there’s all those mysterious female conditions that happen when you are um, sexually active. Face it lots of those weird funguses and Itises not to mention having to depend on those horrid fattening daily supplements are undoubtedly the by product of all that sweet loving .
Darned if you do, darned if you don’t.


Benefit Number Four. Less Pollution.
Its kind of complex but please bear with me. All this loving means you’re expected to get hitched and then society expects you to procreate. Its odd, because there are about a quarter million orphans in this country alone, who need parents, and there is nowhere in the Constitution that says you are supposed to add to the population. But you go do the I DO thing and all the neighbors- and old wives and new aunts and the lot of them, mostly female , can think about is, “what no kids yet?” So you submit to that pressure. Please don’t get me wrong – I have nothing against kids , precious darlings, its just that I wonder why its so totally compulsory to reproduce once you are mated, almost as its imperative on any one in romance to get hitched, regardless of whether you can provide comfortably for them or even have any idea of the real meaning of what you are about to do.
The results, of this social pressure, who honestly look as if they wish they had never been born, can be seen each morning in Colombo, freshly powdered and stuffed vertically and sometimes horizontally into smokey windowed school vans and buses.( Ive since figured that dusting them with talcum powder is a sort of friction reducing thing to make it easier for them to claw their way out of the buses when they reach school..)
Then there are the “luckier” lots who are piled onto over crowded motorcycles, I often speculate on how they chose which one should be at the back of a bike seating five…do they draw straws, or is it that just by co incidence its always the little girl in the family- And how do you think she feels about more siblings?
In conclusion – is it just me or would it seem that the less love there is, the more peace and happiness there will be all around?

So there you have my complex and admittedly somewhat unfeeling theory about how Valentine is ultimately responsible for the traffic in Colombo, but, as an afterthought, please don’t let that cramp your style. Be there, do that, and, as they say in the Sunscreen song, “throw away the old bank statements but keep: your old love letters!” the reason for that is, of course, they may be harder to come by in future…
See, some people are actually figuring out that Valentine’s Day isn’t actually compulsory.
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For true malcontent, google for “alt.suicide.valantines day survival kit”, and order your “HATE IS GREAT” and “SCREW VALANTINES DAY” T Shirts, although I would personally draw the line at bombing the Hallmarks outlets- since after all, although I think love sucks , I do support peace!
* This is rather besides the point I admit. However it wins Ally’s unofficial award for the Single Best Text Message of 2005 and I just had to include it here.