Valentine’s Day is rapidly approaching and according to every single commercial and retail store, you must celebrate it. What are the exact origins of Valentine’s Day anyway? Well kids, I did my research (via Google) and honestly, there is no definitive answer. There was said to be a bishop named St. Valentine who secretly married people (around 270 A.D.) when it had been banned by some dude named Claudius, as he believed married men to be weak and, therefore, unable to fight as soldiers in war. There is no solid proof of this, however. And it is said that St. Valentine signed a note he wrote to his lover: “From Your Valentine.”
When I was a kid I obsessed over buying the cutest Valentine’s cards from the store. Why? Because we all had that handmade card holder attached to the front of our desk at school for classmates to leave their Valentines and treats for us. I would really, really, stress about how many cards or treats I would get, and who would give me one. Just think of Charlie Brown with his briefcase in class on Valentine’s Day … ummm … Yeah, that was me … kinda … Well, a lot. I put all of my hopes on this one day.
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There is something about Valentine’s Day that drives women into a frenzy of emotions. There is the bitter girl, the angry girl, the “I don’t need a man anyway” girl, the over-emotional girl, and the “I’m in love with love” girl. Which one are you? I think on some level I may have been everyone of these girls at different points in my love life. There were the high school years of pure naiveté when I thought the girls who had huge flower bouquets, candy-grams, or dates for Valentine’s were the luckiest and prettiest girls. Then, came the college years when I had my string of heartbreaks and thus couldn’t care less about Valentine’s Day. Fast-forward to after graduation when I hoped to live out the type of Valentine’s Day you see in the movies: He sends you flowers at work. You arrive at his house after work and walk into a room filled with rose pedals strewn across the floor, and candles lit. There is dinner, wine, and the most amazing night ending with making love while Sade plays in the background. Needless to say that did not occur — and frankly has yet to happen.
As I grew older, I became less fixated on Valentine’s Day. Don’t get me wrong … Love is amazing and I really do believe celebrating it is essential in life. But there is something cheesy and unromantic to me about Valentine’s Day now. Uh, oh, have I fallen into the bitter girl attitude? No, I would just rather a man want to show me he loves me in his own way, and on any other day of the year just because that’s the way he feels, and not because Hallmark says he should. Look, there is nothing wrong with being excited about Valentine’s Day, buying roses, sexy lingerie, and celebrating it, but there is something wrong with basing how a man or woman feels about you on their behavior on that one day out of 365. I’ve seen a lot of women pressuring their men into making a grand romantic gesture just because it’s Valentine’s Day. And to that I ask, what has he done for you every other day of the year? Does he text you good morning everyday? Cook dinner for you? Sit through that damn chick flick every time you want to watch it? Is he as nice to your family as he is to his? Tell you you’re beautiful when you’re not dressed up? Pull you close when you’re cold? Talk about you to his friends? Cuddle with you? These are all things any girl would love to have in her life everyday, so realize that although Valentine’s Day is technically February 14, if you have a man or woman in your life that does any of these things, well, then you have Valentine’s Day every day of the year.