Fine, I exaggerate. However, sometimes I wonder if she is more emotionally committed to the latest installment of “Grand Theft Auto” than to me. Of course, I was the one who irritated her with my obsessive devotion to “Final Fantasy.”

Revenge is sweet.

I would like to see some type of statistical study on the kind of damage that video games can do to a marriage. Forget setting up romantic dinners or remembering her second cousin’s wife’s birthday: the real challenge to many committed couples today is making sure you don’t kill each other while arguing about whether or not “Assassin’s Creed” lived up to its hype (I say yes, she says no).

It chokes me, but I have to admit that my wife is a better gamer. To be perfectly honest, she even has a better relationship with my parents than I, their son, do (“why can’t you be more like Dina*, son?” – a question I hear almost as often as the “when are you going to give us grandchildren?” inquiry). Maybe, she is better at living.

Does my wife have to make a mockery of my high scores? My knowledge of elaborate cheats? My commitment to the art of gaming?

The answer, I am discovering, is affirmative.

I have no one to blame. I created this situation. Once, I made a horrible blunder. I became competitive with her. I forgot that in relationships, excessive competition is not healthy. Before we were married she knew that I was the better cook. The sight of a kitchen makes her confused, while I navigate everything from the stove to the juice-maker easily. This didn’t trouble her.

It didn’t trouble her that I could touch the tip of my nose with my tongue and she, by contrast, could not. She could be humble about such life-and-death matters.

I had lost my humility, however. Perhaps now it is time to find it again.

Men are jealous of women who excel in a “boy’s” field, and gaming is still dominated by the boys. There is nothing manly or natural about the jealousy. It’s simple stupidity. Even as one’s friends point out that one’s wife is more fun to play “Halo” with when we visit them (we have steered clear of buying an Xbox, if only because we don’t want to die, covered in mold, while attempting to play every good game the world offers), one must remain committed to the idea that she has the right to the praise she receives.

Let her continue the Playstation affair.

I’ll console (pun intended) myself with my secret shrimp recipe.

What? I have to be good at something.

*- Name changed to protect the innocent.

My profound problems with this so-called holiday run deeper than that.

Consider, for instance, the candy:

Too sweet, too artificial, inevitably heart-shaped, and always stuffed in a ridiculous box that no grown man (or woman) should be seen carrying in public. Indulge in a few of these, and you can actually feel your teeth rotting in your head for the rest of the day. No amount of toothpaste can quite erase the sticky film on the enamel. Drinking ten soft-drinks in a row is probably much, much healthier.

Then, of course, there is the rest of the merchandise:

I was in a store this week, searching for clothes for a formal occasion, when the salesman decided to force me to buy a sky-blue tie patterned with pink hearts and chubby cherubs. “Special promotion, sir.” At first I thought it would make for a nice joke-gift, until I realized that this “special promotion” actually cost approximately one hundred British pounds.

Of course, come February 15th, it will be lying in the bargain bin next to the pink, heart-shaped cuff-links, and God-knows-what-else.

On my way out of the store, a saleswoman with an evil grin sprayed me with something that came out of a (surprise!) pink bottle, and smelled like roses doused in sugar. She claimed that this was a cologne for men. Well, no woman should have to wear something like that either. It was more like perfume for chihuahuas.

The entire episode made me wish I could barricade myself in my house until February 15th had safely arrived, and avoid the bargain-bins henceforth for at least another week.

So, am I in favor of banning this ridiculous debacle of a holiday?

No.

As a matter of fact, I think that certain religious authorities have gone a trifle too far in banning the color red this week. They are only making the forbidden fruit that much (artificially) sweeter. Now there will be people who will celebrate this holiday simply because it is a rebellious thing to do. And we don’t need anything like that.

The minute that Valentine’s Day becomes a cool, “alternative” holiday for people who “oppose the system” and “question authority,” will also be the minute that I officially decamp to another planet. Or, at the very least, a deserted island somewhere.

A few days ago, walls were punched in frustration and hair was being pulled out all across the Middle East. The Internet had simply failed. Sites were either not loading at all, or else loading at the approximate speed of the dreadful dial-up era. Entire businesses were said to have stopped functioning.

I don’t know about you, but I felt as though I had been transported back into a primitive Dark Age. I opened the curtains half-expecting to see a street full of carts pulled along by donkeys.

Things are better now; for me and my ISP, at the very least. I am no longer pulling out my hair. But my fingers are still twitching from the initial shock. Any momentary lapse in my browser’s functions has me wanting to crawl under my desk, whimpering in horror at the thought that “ohnoohnoohno, it is about to start again.”

So, what happened? Apparently an underwater cable was cut somewhere in the Mediterranean, affecting a number of Arab countries, not to mention India. The initial news inspired me to picture a battle between rival armies of giant squid, with a hapless cable as innocent bystander.

Letting one’s imagination run wild is certainly one way to spend the time, particularly if one has been cut off from both Facebook and Google.

I have heard many a speech on how Internet infrastructure is The Best Infrastructure Ever. After this week’s events, I am no longer so sure.

Yet, what truly frightened me about the Great Internet Outage of 2008 was how empty and bereft my life appeared to me the minute the dreadful error messages began showing up. I felt cut off from the universe. Alone like Will Smith in “I Am Legend.” It didn’t matter that all around me were thousands of living, breathing human beings. Technology had taken me to that place where human interaction had been compressed to fit a browser screen. It lured me there, and then it abandoned me.

Looking back on it, I certainly could have spent the Outage in a better and more productive manner. Instead of banging my head on my desk, I could have taken a walk. Or a nap. I could have read a poem. Or even written one.

I could have discovered myself to be good at writing poems. I could have used the moment to launch down a path of becoming the second Shakespeare. After all, we do not know much about Shakespeare. Perhaps he became a great writer by accident: a broken-down carriage, some unexpected downtime, a sudden flash of self-discovery…

Instead, after I was done banging my head, I sat and complained to everyone I knew about what an awful time I was having. It was somewhat of a bonding ritual, even if it was a deeply unsatisfying one.

I couldn’t insert little frowning icons in conversations, and was actually forced to arrange and re-arrange my facial features. Finally, my forehead cramped up.

I then entertained myself by cleaning out my fridge, expecting it to conk out any minute now as well. Or else just conk me over the head with the freezer door.

After all, once technology starts down the path of mischief, you never know where it might all end up.