Lebron James… Would You Be My Valentine?

With Valentine’s Day paraphernalia being out for the last 3 weeks, I find it is never too soon to write about the controversial day. When it comes to holidays, most people are on the same page. No one hates Labor Day or Thanksgiving. You don’t see people calling St. Patrick’s Day a cheap gimmick by beer companies and the color green to stimulate their sales. Valentine’s Day is the Lebron James of Holidays. Each has three distinct set of followers. Those that think it is overrated and horrible, those that really don’t care either way, and those that love it like no other.

There is no way you can change the minds of those that despise Valentine’s Day, just like LBJ anti-fans. The damage has been done; it has been melted into ones psyche like the idea that fire is hot. It cannot be overcome. Sure you will have your good V-days or the vindication of your team beating LBJ’s, but that doesn’t change anything when they come back around next year. Even the people that loath V-day, still know it is a great time to go to a bar and easily pick up a single girl, it is like watching Lebron drop 55 while shooting 68%. You recognize the greatness that it was, but still have that awful feeling in the bottom of your stomach and regret it later in the week.

Those that could care less about Valentine’s Day sound exactly like those that don’t follow the NBA. They say the same phrases, “I don’t see what the big deal is,” “(ESPN or greeting card companies) are the ones pushing the hype on us,” and my favorite, “I could really careless about it, none of this affects my life in the least.” These people are swing voters; they will unintentionally stay in the middle till they sway to one side at the last minute. You can debate with them all you want, you won’t sway them. It will take an event or someone special to convince them to one side or the other, like a lover that is obsessed with the day or seeing Lebron play live.

Finally you have the obsessive’s, those that no matter what has happened in the past will always love Valentine’s Day and/or Lebron. They will send cards, buy chocolates, wear the red heat jersey with pride. They will overlook the time they got dumped on February 10th or July 8th. True loyalists, fans for one reason or another, everyone has their own reasons, usually rooted in delusional remembering’s of childhood fancy. The time in middle school when the boy next door you had been crushing on for years gave you your first kiss on the walk home from school on Valentine’s Day. Unwrapping your first basketball jersey, a wine and gold number 23, and then going to your first game with your father. Small moments in life that you remember as perfect, which never really played out that way in real life. The boy accidently bit your lip and the Cleveland Cavs lost by a dozen. None of that matters to them. They are thick skinned and optimistic to the point of no return.

No matter where you stand on either Valentine’s Day or Lebron James and how much they are blown up, over celebrated, picked on, loved or hated, they are here to stay. Of course this is barring some sort of cataclysmic event doesn’t destroy us all in 2012. Fingers crossed.