he connotation behind a calendar date that celebrates the idea of sharing a romantic union with someone gets more crippling by the year to those who don’t have that privilege. Honestly, I blame a lot of that on this new, invisible layer of social pressure that’s been introduced by the internet, and the steadily increasing exposure it’s given to the holiday in this tech-addicted generation.
Now, full disclosure; this feature doesn’t stem out of any kind of resentment over the relationship I just recently got out of shortly after Valentine’s, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say that it did help inspire the idea for the feature. I mean, I wasn’t really all that happy in it after the “butterflies” settled, and well, considering the experience I've had being single too, I felt like I had an obligation to call out the negative stigma attached to the status quo, because I think it’s bull shit—you can totally be happy when you’re single.
In fact, I think people can live healthy, fruitful lives being single, and this outlook gets lost in some sort fearful crossfire between what you perceive is best for you, and what others may perceive is best for you—it’s bogus.
I’ve recently revisited a game that was really popular with the PPR cast a while back, especially with Andrew; a game centered on the stress and tension to the abstract nature of Love, and the happiness that it’s meant to deliver; and how it’s probably not all that it’s cracked up to be—I fully played through Catherine for the first time. And I think it’s one of the best modern-day cures for the Valentine’s Day Blues.
I remember when Andrew first introduced me to Catherine. At first glance, it seemed like a neat puzzle game with a quirky Japanese-heavy spin to it, and after biting off a little more, the whole thing came off to me as nothing more than “Super Q*Bert with infidelity.” Dusting off my copy, I came into it with a bit of an inspective approach to it, and it that’s when the title transformed into an entirely different sort of game; one that’s geared around sending a message than simply throwing you into a daunting gauntlet of puzzles.
That message was about examining what really makes you happy, and whether or not someone else’s happiness is worth the expense of your own. I know, that’s pretty cynical, but with society living in the present “hook-up” age in dating, it’s becoming more and more common for people to settle for what they think is real purely out of fear to the aforementioned alternative—looking at it like that, the theme hits closer to home with you than some of us may care to admit, and well, it doesn’t make it any less true.
From the get-go, Katherine pressures our disenthralled hero into engaging their romantic commitment a bit more seriously after going at it for the last five years; and while I’m not exactly doubting that she cares about the guy, her motivation isn’t as romantic as she postures it to be. At so many points that Katherine dotes upon Vincent for his lack of initiate towards their relationship, or his life in general. You begin to see a woman who nags because she cares, but a woman who’s subconsciously resenting a man who she believes has wasted the best years of her young adult life.
Just to be clear—I’m not vilifying Katherine, not in the slightest, it’s just awkward to see an individual cling on to someone, not out of some stalwart devotion of love, but mostly because she feels that she’s past the point of no return. As the story progresses, Katherine's feelings continue to open up further, and it's a little unsettling, to say the least; her sentiment is rooted around this idea where the premium to start over again with someone is one that’s much more daunting than the endeavor of salvaging what she can out of unhealthy relationship with Vincent.
I’m not excusing Vincent either, but I will give him one benefit; you see a more earnest reflection out of him whenever he does take the time to think about what he has with Katherine, and whether or not that he should be with her, not whether or not he deserves her.
Unfortunately, his actions speak louder than his words, and he carries on with his shitty denial over an even shittier affair with Catherine, and what it really means when it comes down to Ms. K without actually stopping it. The only redeemable aspect about his reflection towards the whole thing as that beyond some form of superficial guilt, he also slightly fears the idea of losing Katherine.
Why does he though, after everything he’s done?—it's because he’s comfortable, and he wants everything to stay the way it is—the real question is whether or not the comfort is around Katherine herself, or the idea that he has a steady girlfriend to lean on wherever, and whenever without the need for permanency. A weird limbo between being tied down to anything with some real commitment, and a union of romance that sweeps away the crushing chill of loneliness at the same time, and when you look at it like that, you begin to see the hints of social commentary that this game has on dating as a whole.
For instance, our fallible protagonist is constantly correlated with that of a sheep, an icon commonly associated with sleep culture, but what if that connotation is just a little too on the nose? What if the underlying meaning behind the sheep-like features that Vincent takes on represent another metaphor that society likened to the animal?—Like the one about a sheep blindly following the herd, specifically an allegory on the mindless conformity towards a popular trend, like finding your “soulmate."
All in all, I’m totally for the idea of finding someone who makes you feel complete, a partner that gives you those sweet “butterflies” in your stomach anytime you’re around them, but in this day and age, people tend to overlook that the odds of such a thing are on the same level of a fantasy, and well, that’s OK. I mean, that's what it makes it special right?
However, this is no longer the age of the hopeless romantic; and to be frank, falling in love for the sake of falling in love is bullshit. Respect the time of both yourself and others, and ackknowledge that manufacturing some ideal image of a relationship with someone purely out of sociaal pressure, or fear of loneliness instead of love is toxic, and way worse than a couple of nights alone will ever be.
I’m happy to say that while Catherine isn’t the love story that it wants to be, it’s got a great life lesson that anyone can get a lot mileage out of instead, because even if Love is over, you still have everything else to look forward to in life.
So with that being said, buck up boys and girls, and push a bunch of dumb cubes, and shit instead.