Am I the only one who finds Valentine’s Day to be a total B.S. holiday? Does that make me a horrible person? Why do I feel like the holiday was invented by Hallmark?
Thus, my quest began.
I’m a guy that likes a good random fact and I am a frequent flyer down many Wikipedia holes. I start looking up the population of Pittsburgh and, before I know it, I find myself researching the transportation infrastructure of the island nation of Tuvalu (only 5 miles of roads!). In fact, this post took me an extra day to write due to further research on Tuvalu that will one day pay huge dividends in a game of Trivial Pursuit. So doing a little research on Valentine’s made me a little giddy.
My first step to confirm my esteemed opinion that Valentine’s Day is total B.S. was to discover who this Valentine guy was. After nine years of Catholic school and two years as an altar boy, I knew he was a saint.
Turns out I was sort of right. Not only was he a saint, THEY were saints. There are at least THREE St. Valentines, although our February 14th Valentine is likely St. Valentine of Rome who was martyred on – you guessed it – February 14th. There was probably more I could have researched on this topic, but after all those years of religion class, it was all the energy I could put toward that topic. What I can confirm is that he didn’t gain his fame through love. Or did he?
Valentine’s Day like we know it started to come into existence in the Middle Ages, when it was thought that birds only did the nasty in February (shame that it’s the shortest month). At that time, it began to be associated with St. Valentine’s feast day. Geoffrey Chaucer provided the first mention of St. Valentine’s Day as a day for lovers in his 700-line poem Parlement of Foules. I’d go into greater detail, but I’m sure you’ve read this classic many times already.
Others say that Valentine’s Day was created to compete against the pagan holiday of Lupercalia, which included women being happily hit with bloody goat hides to become more fertile. How this tradition died off, I have no idea.
The mother of Valentine’s Day as we know it today is Esther A. Howland, who began selling the first mass produced valentine’s cards in the mid 1800’s. Her father was the owner of the largest stationary and bookstore in Quincy, MA (an honor comparable to being the smartest person at a Trump rally). She felt she could create a better Valentine’s Day card and, based on the initial orders of $5,000 (about $150,000 in today’s money), apparently she was right. And, thus, the commercialization of Valentine’s Day began.
Now, Valentine’s Day is the second biggest day for greeting cards. Women purchase 85 percent of those cards. The term “Hallmark Holiday” was pretty much invented for Valentine’s Day.
To me, Valentine’s feels like such a forced holiday. It instructs you to do something you hopefully already do every day (if you’re not single, that is), but this time with money instead. I guess if you’re in a relationship where outward affection isn’t a regular thing, maybe Valentine’s Day provides a little help. But if you’re already doing just fine, it seems like it won’t really help things. In a way, Valentine’s Day could be considered a laxative for love.
As my wife and I are into the 18th year of our relationship, we’ve become less and less eager to do the whole fancy dinner thing at a restaurant. Waiting in lines in a crowded restaurant seems to be more of a way to test a relationship rather than celebrate one.
For us, an ideal romantic time is sitting in the living room watching the Grand Tour on Amazon or Ancient Aliens (okay, the last one is mostly me). It’s not for everyone, but it’s us.
So, maybe that’s it. Just do what makes you you. You both want a $200 dinner in a packed restaurant? Enjoy. Just don’t invite me (Plus, I’d feel like an awkward third wheel anyway). Maybe an all-night session of Dungeons and Dragons is your thing? Maybe it’s a sex dungeon (I don’t judge). Maybe its reading blogs (I hope not). Maybe it’s just sitting back and being thankful it’s just you.
In the end, just go with what works, but do it every day. Not just February 14th. As Chaucer said in Parlement of Foules, “It takes two to make a thing go right. It takes two to make it outta sight.”
middleagedhipster.com 