Issue date: 2/7/08 Section: Editorial/Opinion

Valentine's Day does not suck.

First reaction I always get when I say that is "Well, you have a boyfriend." Not true. I'm single and truly believe that Valentine's Day is not "Singles Awareness Day."

Don't get me wrong - I think the red and pink cut-out hearts trimmed with lace, the little chubby angels, sparkles and chocolates spouting "I-love-yous" are a little much. Come over to my house and you might find a box of candy hearts, but that's about it. I'm not into the over-the-top decorating and I'm well aware the card industry made this holiday, as we know it now anyway, what it is today.

But just because I don't have a relationship listed in my Facebook profile doesn't mean this is a holiday I am going to complain about. I do not think the only people allowed to have any fun on Valentine's Day are the couples. I for one, am sick of hearing everyone who's not in a relationship complain about how Valentine's Day makes them miserable and how much it sucks. For all of those who hate Valentine's Day because you don't have a date, stop. The act is getting old. Just because you don't have a date doesn't mean you're not spending the day with someone special.

I'm not going to try to defend Valentine's Day for its "deeper meaning." This is a holiday practically invented by the card industry. Although the holiday does have Christian origins, honoring Saint Valentine, who was buried on Feb. 14, Catholic tradition states that there could have been up to three different Valentine martyrs. While there is still a great deal of debate about who the holiday is for, in 1969 a revision of the Roman Catholic Calendar of Saints removed the holiday because too little is known about Saint Valentine's life. What is known, however, is that originally there were no romantic connections to the holiday. The type of love the day symbolizes is not that between lovers. Meaning, the holiday is only loosely based on any kind of religious tradition. There's no strong evidence for the true meaning of Valentine's Day. It's commercialized. And history suggests it has been for hundreds of years.

The tradition connecting passionate love to Valentine's Day is actually medieval and developed during the era of courtly love. It was then poetry, love notes and gift giving became popularized. Flash forward to the mid-1800s in the United States and suddenly the first mass-produced cards are being sold. The logical jump here is if Valentine's cards were being mass produced, the tradition continued from courtly love across the pond and to the industrial revolution in the United States. But the mass production was the turning point. Suddenly cards were no longer just for lovers, but for everyone. In the second half of the 20th century, the diamond industry, the food industry and flower industry hopped on the Valentine bandwagon and started promoting their specialties as Valentine's gifts. Again, I am not defending Valentine's Day because it's commercialized. I know it is. In fact, it's mostly around today as we know it because of capitalism. But I still don't think the holiday sucks because despite generally choosing not to celebrate the holiday, I actually do (to a certain extent).

Every year that I have nothing to do on Valentine's Day, I end up doing something with my girlfriends because we "have nothing else to do." We might go to dinner or go eat a pint of Ben and Jerry's while watching chick flicks, but we're still doing something. Underneath the flowers, winged fat kids and sugar, the reason Valentine's Day became so commercialized is somebody figured out they could cash in on the fact that we, as humans, have relationships and important people in our lives. This year I'm going out to dinner with one of my friends. When we first made plans, it was because both of us knew that we weren't going to have dates on Valentine's Day, so we were going to be each other's dates because we didn't want to be alone. And that's just the thing. Through not wanting to be alone, in the significant other sense, I won't be alone. I'll be with one of my closest friends.

The commercialized holiday is geared towards couples, but I somehow always manage to spend Valentine's Day with people who are important to me. Whether it be the guy I'm dating at the time, or the girlfriends who have always been there for me, whether I'm on some cheesy date or celebrating "Singles Awareness Day," I'm always doing something with someone.

Even though the holiday is the spawn of the card industry, all the commercialism that I don't want to be left out on gets me out with the people who are important in my life. So if this shallow, Hallmark card holiday gives me the chance to let the people in my life know they are important to me, is it really such a bad thing?

Schneider is a junior English/Spanish double major and managing editor of The Spectator.

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