So today is Valentine's Day, the day when those in loving relationships are told that they have to shower each other with special gifts and have a fancy dinner and partake in obligatory sex. Personally, I like to refer to the "holiday" as just being an over-commercialized waste of time and money.
No, I don't say that because I'm bitter and single on this day; I say it because it's true. Even if I was in a relationship, I still wouldn't celebrate Valentine's Day and I would hope that whomever I am with at the time would share the same attitude.
Just like how New Year's is used as an excuse for unmotivated people to attempt to change something in their lives, Valentine's Day is just an excuse for material-mined people to show someone how much they love them. If you truly love someone, you shouldn't need a holiday as a reason to show that person your love; expressing affection is something that should be constantly done, regardless of the day.
Valentine's Day is like a mini-Christmas; both have been commercialized so much that the actually meaning of the holiday has been lost. Valentine's Day was originally meant as a day to observe and honor multiple Christian saints, or martyrs, named Valentinus and was first established back in 496 AD. Of course, who wants to celebrate some lame religious guys not named Jesus? So over time, starting around the 15th century, it somehow evolved into becoming more about celebrating one's affection for another.
Today, thanks mainly to Hallmark, Valentine's Day is marketed and forced down everyone's throat because retail stores need a reason to make a decent profit between post-Christmas and Easter. Since it's kind of impossible to market Martin Luther King Jr. Day or Presidents' Day as big spending events, Valentine's Day is an easy choice and it gets all the focus.
I'm not saying one shouldn't celebrate Valentine's Day with a significant other, I'm just saying that you shouldn't feel pressured into do something extra special or waste additional money buying meaningless gifts because the media and retail stores tell you that you should. And to those of us that are single on Valentine's Day; the world tries to convince us that we should feel like losers and sad that we're all alone. But really, how is not being in a relationship today different than the day before or any other day that we were alone? It's not. So don't feel extra depressed today because they say you should.
Today should be treated just like any other day, coupled or single.
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