A special day in memory of the great and noble St. Boysarerubbish, Boys Are RUBBISH day should ideally be spent in the company of several good female friends, lots of ice cream and good movies (but not rom-coms). Also, as I'm sure the good saint would agree, alcohol isn't such a good idea as the happiness it brings can oh-so-easily turn to exagerrated sorrow and weeping and dwelling on unsavoury things, as I'm sure you are all aware.

I don't know what you do if you're a boy on this day. I'd suggest there may be a St. Allgirlsaretwats for you to venerate, but of course that isn't true.

Seriously though, I'm not bitter- we all know how Valentine's Day is a load of commercialised rubbish anyway. I'd offer my own thoughts about love and the sordid like, but I think I can do better in offering you the wisest, most true words I've ever heard on the subject. That they come from the mouth of a fictional, bi-sexual Dutchman is not important- I honestly think this passage, and in fact the entire book, has had the biggest effect on my way I think about life in general out of everything I've ever read.

I'm probably breaching copyright by doing this, but I'm sure the author would understand. I'd just type out the lines I think are most important, but they wouldn't make sense out of context... so you're getting the whole lot. (Trust me, it's good though.) The most important bits are in bold. Also, this is not me coming out, or saying I want an open relationship, or that I don't believe in marriage, or anything like that. I don't agree with all that he says, but he does have a fair point. It rings true, which I think is important at any time- and especially today, when so much of the suppose love we see is false.


--From 'Postcards from No Man's Land', by Aiden Chambers

"Daan put his fork down. 'You want the lecture?' He took a drink of wine. 'Okay, here's the lecture. Then it's enough maybe. Yes? Agreed?'
Jacob said, 'Dunno what I'm going to hear yet.'
'No, but it will be enough. Then the ice cream. That's the bargain.'
'What a dictator you are. Thank heaven you're not a politician.'
'Or a husband,' Ton said.
'You want it or not?' Daan said.
'Okay, yes,' Jacob said.
Daan wiped his mouth with his napkin. 'You've heard all the arguments. You'd have to be brain dead not to. Marriage belongs to an out-of-date social system, a different way of life from now. There's nothing absoluut about it. It's only a way of controlling the population. It's about property and land rights. [To Ton] overerving-?'
'Inheritance,' Ton said.
'Inheritance. The purity of the... shit!- [to Ton] geslacht?'
'Let me think... [to Jacob] lineage?'
'Line,' Jacob said. 'The family line.'
'Yes,' Daan said, 'the family line. Only if the woman was pure when the man married her and she became his possession was he sure his children were his. And only if he was the only one who fucked her could he still call her his. Marriage is about the protection of the genes and about ownership. You've heard all this before. Yes? Well, it doesn't mater now. It's of no importance. Except to a few dinosaurs, like royal families and monomaniacal multi-millionaires, and to people with a vested interest, like priests and lawyers and politicians.'
'And not to them any more, to judge by their actions,' Ton said. 'Look at your British royals. What a mess, eh? What a hypocrisy!'
They laughed.
Daan went on, 'As for eternal love, loving the same person for ever, living with the same person for ever. Can you think of anything which is more obviously untrue? It's an illusion.'
'Sarah and Geertrui don't think so,' Jacob said.
'Ha!' Daan mocked. 'And look at them. What are they in love with, our two grootmoeders? Not who. What. You think our English grandfather was so wonderful as they both say? You think he was so perfect? You think he was this big romantic hero Geertrui makes him? No no. Of course not. Come real, Jakob.'
'Get real is what you mean. Another gormless phrase.'
'Gormless?' Ton said.
'I dunno,' Jacob said irritably. 'Stupid, naff, silly.'
'Come real, get real, who cares!' Daan said. 'Geertrui's Jacob is an illusion. Verbeelding. Fantasy.'
Jacob was rattled. 'I don't believe you. Maybe she sees him through rosy spectacles now, after all these years. Sarah too. But something big happened between them then. Something true. Something existed which wasn't a fantasy. They haven't made it up. You can't deny that.'
'Yes. Then. For how long. A few weeks? But if he had lived...?'
'That's an if. Nobody can know.'
'Great! Okay! That's how it was. For both of them, a big love. And Jacob a great guy. Well, he must have been. We're his grandsons and we're great guts, yes?'
They laughed.
Daan went on, 'And yes, nobody knows how it would be between them now. That's my point. You're agreeing with me. Nobody knows, because what we know is that it was more likely not to be a big thing between them any longer after all these years. There's no absoluut. No for ever. So don't pretend there is. Don't make rules about it. Or laws based on it. If people want to say for ever to each other, okay, let them. It's up to them. But for me, no. Just like there are no rules about love. Who you love. How many people you can love. Like love is some kind of commodity in... [to Ton] eindig?'
'Eindig, eindig...'
'Shit! This is so boring to do in English. Why don't you speak Dutch, little brother?'
Ton had got up and gone to the bookshelves. Daan poured more wine. Ton came back, flipping the pages of a Dutch/English dictionary.
'Eindig,' he said, reading. 'Finite.'
'Finite?' Daan said. 'Okay, finite... What the hell was I saying?'
Jacob said, 'Love is not finite.'
'Right. Yes. Love is not finite. It is not that we each have a limited supply of it that we can only give to one person at a time. Or that we have one kind of love that can only be given to one person in the whole of our lives. It's a ridiculous thing to think so. I love Ton. I sleep with him when we both want it. Or when one of us needs it, even if the other doesn't want it then. I love Simone-'
'Simone?' Jacob said.
'She was here the other morning when you left. She called out to you. She lives two streets away. Ton and Simone know each other. They were friends before I met them. We've talked about it. Ton never sleeps with women. That's the way he is. Simone only sleeps with me. That's the way she is. I sleep with them both. That's the way I am. They both want to sleep with me. That's how we are. That's how we want it. If we didn't, or if any one of us didn't, then, okay, that's it. All the stuff about gender. Male, female, queer, bi, feminist, new man, whatever- it's meaningless. As out of date as marriage for ever. I'm tired of hearing about it. We're beyond that now.'
'You are, maybe,' Jacob said. 'Not all of us, though. Not most of us probably. Not where I come from anyway.'
'No, well, nothing ever changes completely at once, does it. That's why revolutions always fail. You can't do anything big with people all at once. But that doesn't mean you have to stay with the ones who belong to the old ways, if you don't. Nothing would ever change if people did that. And me, like I say, I'm tired of discussing it. Let people go on the way they want to in the old way if they can't live up to the new way. But I'm not going to be stopped. I'm not going to be held back. I'm not going to live the kind of lie that keeps the old system going.'
Jacob said, 'I dunno. Doesn't seem to me to be as clear cut as you make out.'
'Yes it is,' Daan said. 'I love who I love. I sleep with who I love if we both want it. Nothing to do with male or female. Nothing is secret. If it ends between us, it ends. That's life. The pain is part of it. Without it, we'd be dead. All that really matters to me is the people I love. How we live together. How we keep each other alive.'
Daan sat back in his seat and rapped the table with his knuckles.
'There,' he said, grinning. 'Over. Finished. Ice cream now. Yes?'"