Am I sexist?

Okay, first an explanation.

I've had several blogs over the years and they've mostly been about me venting my spleen for a very select audience. Each one has been deleted after months or years of neglect and then replaced by another idea of what I think the world (at large or otherwise) wants to hear from me.

This one was an attempt to de-personalise my blog, make it work related and, hopefully, useful to someone at some point (which you'll see if you can be bothered to work your way through any of my previous, very dry, posts).

But this post's different! I've had a glass or two of vino and have a bee in my bonnet about Valentine's day. It's too big a rant for a Facebook update so it's going to be a blog post instead.

My apologies in advance to anyone unfortunate enough to read my drunken ramblings...

So... am I being sexist, or am I right in thinking that Valentine's day is geared up specifically to extort money from blokes? It's a serious question, and not one from a man who feels hard done by. I've honestly never thought about it before but today made me realise that I've been brainwashed, by person or persons unknown, into thinking that being romantic on Valentine's day is the duty of men.

Having agreed with my wife that we'd do nothing for St V's day this year, I still found myself compelled to go out and, at the very least, get DVDs, wine and pizza for an evening of entertainment.

Whilst walking down the road I noticed that a local pizza shop had a queue out of the door. My initial thought was that this was of course due to the particular date. However, as soon as I noticed that there were a lot of women in the queue, I immediately assumed that I was wrong and that it must be because it's a two-for-one deal day.

But that's surely sexist, isn't it? Why shouldn't a woman be out getting takeaway as a treat for her other half? But it just seems wrong to me! And so my only conclusion has to be that I'm either brainwashed or a sexist.

Not sure I'm happy with either option really...