Love is a beautiful emotion. “It is all around us” as the Beatles said. Love is something all humans need. Whether it’s love for your family, friends, pets, ‘significant others’ or anything else, I admit that love is a beautiful thing we share in life. I myself am a hopeless romantic sucker for love stories. However, I still don’t understand why we have to dedicate one single day to love. The origin of Valentine’s Day is not very clear but one of the believed origins is actually quite dark. It dates back to the time of the Late Antiquity in Rome, in the 14th of February 270 AD, where a Christian banquet was organized in order to celebrate and honor one or two Christian Martyrs who were both named Valentine. This then became a yearly tradition celebrated by many which was named Saint Valentines. Tell me how this day evolved from the honoring of two martyrs to a day to celebrate romance? I do not see the correlation between these two things, to be quite honest. I am pretty sure not everybody knows the origin of this celebration. I didn’t. And when I found out I will say I was flabbergasted to say the least. But hey, if it makes sense to most of the world’s population then by all means continue to celebrate this day.
This tradition has become a commercialized celebration for people to show you how much they love you through material gifts, and to show off how much they’ve spent on gifts and sweets. The shops and stores are all full of heart shaped decorations, pink and red colored strings hanging from displays, little cliché quotes like ‘Love is in the air’ or ‘You complete me’… even my own computer betrayed me by showing me a very big advertisement of a new ‘Love Songs & Chill’ playlist the second I opened Spotify. I think it’s just a big scam to spend a lot of money on expensive presents whilst brands are making a huge profit out of ‘love’. That doesn’t sit right with me.
Every year there are many holidays shared by the majority of people. We have Halloween, the time for Christmas or winter celebrations which is different for everybody but is still a celebrated holiday by many, New Year’s Eve, and so on. These are holidays which are inclusive. However, Saint Valentine’s literally singles out single people (no pun intended). Some people say, “No but this day is not only for couples but any different type of love”. If us single people didn’t feel bad enough about being alone on this day, having you go and include us in this ‘celebration’ out of pity just makes things way worse.
You might think “oh, the person who is writing this is single and sad and simply wants to ruin everybody else’s day” and to that I say…you’re not wrong on both accounts. However, this has nothing to do with my opinion regarding Valentine’s Day. When I was younger, my parents thought this day was also very silly. It’s a day for lovers to express their love and affection to their significant other with gifts and chocolates. Like, what? If you love someone, don’t you express it and celebrate it every day? Isn’t your love shown through your daily actions and affections, and not spending it all on one single day? I believe love is a beautiful and necessary thing in life.
Anyways Happy (late) Valentine’s Day everybody. Or for those who think like me, it’ll just be another Tuesday.
Marina
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