Valentine’s Day is a psychologically, emotionally and (sometimes) physically demanding holiday. The candy Sweethearts© are microcosmic expressions of this — Be mine, Let’s kiss, Melt my heart, and now: Tweet Me. Find a valentine, now prove you love them on February 14. Tweet the s%@$ out of them. It’s a lot of pressure.
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alentine’s Day has long been a source of grief for me. In grammar school, Valentine’s Day meant candy and cards from everyone in the class (it had been mandated that no one be left out) followed by extreme scrutiny of each card and author. A Looney Toons card reading, “I’m Looney For You!” — was Billy really looney for me? Or was he just sloppy in deciding who got which card? The fact that there were limited phrases and cards prepackaged to express your feelings didn’t occur to me. I always ensured that I didn’t communicate a false message with my cards and expected everyone else to strategically spill their hearts via carefully selected cardboard. Though in the second grade, I decided the cards weren’t enough to capture the emotion I was trying to convey to a certain, let’s call him Kyle (his name was Kyle). I painted him an oil rendition of a Goosebumps monster — his favorite — that was immediately rejected. You could have just kept it, Kyle. I’m still waiting for that wound to heal, Kyle.
After classmates were no longer forced to give everyone a valentine, I went through a valentine dry-spell, also known as high school. What kind of sick holiday emphasizes who is alone? My “I’m going to die alone phase” culminated on Valentines Day, supplemented by my grandfather’s urge to become a nun, I hated Valentine’s Day, complete with the pinks, the reds, the candy and flowers and cards I wasn’t receiving, and the candy I found and ate by myself anyway. My single friends and I joined feminist forces in a vendetta against this Hallmark Frankenstein by cranking Alanis Morissette and consuming large quantities of cookie dough on my friend’s living room couch. Talk about girl power.
Valentine’s Day is uncomfortable. It demands that love be expressed succinctly with transient objects like flowers and candy hearts. It allows us to hide behind pre-prepared words and cliché gestures. Valentine’s Day is the Facebook of holidays. The connection is attempted but incomplete, and somehow impersonal. To have a day dedicated to love is beautiful in theory, but the implied novelty of such a day mitigates its charm. Corny as it sounds, love should be paramount every day.
I’m not saying that Valentine’s Day can’t be pleasant or romantic, the label of the day just shouldn’t dictate the quality of the day — this makes for almost certain disappointment. Make plans with friends or significant others but not simply because the calendar names the day as “special.” When recounting such a day, the person and circumstance should precede the date, as in, “We did this and I felt this and oh, it was Valentine’s Day” rather than “It was Valentine’s Day, so we did this.” Otherwise, you’re back in grammar school distributing obligatory cards that when dissected, say nothing more than “I could have bought this for anyone.”