Valentine’s Day–pile of crap
Yeah, so Valentine’s Day is this week. Super. I think this is the perfect time to tell you why this supposed “holiday” is nothing but a bunch of crap.
First of all, I’m a male. That means that, statistically, Valentine’s Day is designed to frustrate the hell out of me and make my life (a normally smooth sailing enterprise) ten times harder. According to history.com, about one billion Valentine cards are exchanged per year and women purchase about 85 percent of all Valentine’s gifts. If you do the math, you’ll find that only 15 percent of Valentines sales are due to men. 15 percent. What does that tell you about male opinions of Valentine’s Day? It tells you that the majority of males out there despise this pinkish, flowery fiasco—for good reason too if you ask me.
The mysterious origin of this stupid holiday notwithstanding, there are more than enough reasons to boycott this banal attempt at “love” on February 14 by looking at its incarnation today.
Today, Valentine’s Day is a Hallmark Holiday if ever there was one. The retail business plans for this “holiday” months in advance by preparing all their “special,” mass-produced, and heavily advertised Valentine’s Day “goodies” for all those love-birds out there to gobble up. How romantic. I know how great I would feel if a significant other of mine took time out of her busy schedule to stop in at Walgreen’s, pick up a pretty little $2.95 Valentine’s Day card—written by some faceless Hallmark employee—sign her name on it, attach a heart shaped box of novelty chocolates—manufactured by some guy named Russell Stover—and then give me the package as if it were the perfect (not to mention unique!) symbol of her love. Somehow, I fail to find enthusiasm for this most “thoughtful” of gestures.
Maybe I’m more of a romantic than I thought, but it seems to me that real love is the sort of thing that happens regardless of some arbitrarily chosen and impersonal date of annual romantic celebration. I’m going to be bold here and say that those who take Valentine’s Day most seriously are probably the ones that are the least in love. Anyone who really is in a healthy, loving relationship with another would have no need to make a big fuss over an artificial holiday like Valentine’s Day. Instead of doing something to “show they care” on the day everyone else is “showing they care,” partners truly in love would be caring for each other virtually every day of the year; and, if they do happen to do something “special” on a particular day, at least that day would be uniquely meaningful to them personally and no one else. This idea of Valentine’s Day—the letting “the day define the love” rather than having “the love define the day”—leads to my next complaint.
Valentine’s Day creates way too much unnecessary anxiety for those not in the relationship “club” when February 14 rolls around. The public commotion stirred up around Valentine’s Day leaves those leading the single’s life (or those in malfunctioning relationships for that matter) feeling left out of something. Some have started referring to February 14 as “Singles Awareness Day” to illustrate the way Valentine’s Day creates a sort of clique that excludes outsiders from all the fun. As a result of this, many people will seek out others to couple up with just to get through the 14th without being alone—to “fit in” with the rest of the clique. What a pile of crap.