WARNING: If you luv, love, LURVE Valentine’s Day, you might want to click here and look at photos of adorable puppies instead of reading down.
Still with me?
Okay, good.
Now let me just throw this out there, before you ask or make assumptions: I’m not single and I’m not bitter.
However, I do hate Valentine’s Day. (Attention, Canada: feel free to change my mind on this any time you want by making it a statutory holiday. Wink wink, nudge nudge).
I mean sure, it’s bastardized and overly commercial and the entire universe looked like it puked hearts and pink and red everywhere, but what holiday ISN’T bastardized by now? Personally, I think we SHOULD bastardize (and, uh, celebrate) Dyngus Day here in Canada, because any day that sanctions thowing water on boys is my kind of holiday.
Holidays-I-Wish-Were-Widely-Celebrated aside (sorry, Mad Hatter Day), I feel like this ooey, gooey, holiday of mush is a touch, uh, far off from the initial meaning of the day.
You see, while you were enjoying your fancy dinner and heart-shaped chocolates, exactly 1,743 years ago poor St. Valentine, Patron of Love, Young People and Happy Marriages was busy getting his head chopped off.
Happy Valentines Day, indeed.
Oh, and this holiday was also allegedly invented as a way for the Catholic Church to circumvent another religion’s holiday. Yep, according to some historians Valentine’s Day was created to take the place of a pagan holiday that fell in mid-Feburary.
Charming.
So no, I don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day.
In fact, yesterday my boyfriend and I got up, cleaned the kitchen, did some separate work on our computers, he did laundry while I finished up, then we had leftovers for dinner before he went to work and I went rock climbing with my friends… just like many other nights!
Gasp, shock, the horror.
It’s not that we don’t like doing nice things for each other, it’s just that the very notion of the stress (and money) of trying to make this “perfect” evening makes me want to hurl.
Did you know that last year, Americans spent a whopping $17.6 BILLION on Valentine’s Day. Billion! And the average person spends $126.03, but that’s an “average” for both genders. This is where Valentine’s Day gets sexist – most men spend roughly $168.74, while use ladies only spend $85.76.
So yeah, I’d rather he pops a chocolate rabbit into my lunch in the morning when I’m not looking, or brings me home a pack of mini-eggs because he noticed they were out for Easter now and knows they’re my favorite. I’d rather bring him a coffee on my way home, or make him a nice steak dinner just because. I like to do it because I FEEL like it and I WANT to do it… not because my calendar says it’s February 14th and I therefore HAVE to do it.
Oh, and V-Day is also totally sexist. No, seriously, statistics don’t lie (and this one makes me sad). While 45% of men believe BOTH genders should be celebrated by their partners on Feburary 14th, only 19% of women think they should do something for their man. I mean, geez, ladies! Are we all really this high-maintenance?
I guess we are, since I also read that 53% of freakin’ women say they would END A RELATIONSHIP on Valentine’s Day if they didn’t get a gift. Coincidently, there is ALSO a 40% increase in calls to divorce lawyers after Valentine’s Day.
I mean, seriously? Gentlemen, trust me: you’re WAY better off without her if that’s the reason she called it off (besides, you and I both know you were just waiting for my favorite holiday, the ever-holy Discount-Chocolate-Day, to get her something, right? ;)
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to Shoppers to clean out the discount candy aisle.