By Carmen Sutra
Just when you thought you recovered from the humiliation of showing up for New Year’s Eve without a date, the most coupliest holiday of all socks yet another crippling blow to your ego – Valentine’s Day. But in the final days before those lovey-dovies empty their wallets in triumphant attempts to prove to their mates just how much they really care, Tina Turner and I are left asking, “What’s love got to do, got to do with it?”
In order to appropriately assess this so-called holiday, we are forced to consider its current state. Celebrity couples take vows and are divorced before season three even makes it to DVD. First Brad and Jen, then our beloved Nick and Jessica. We are living in a society so quick to jump ship on their marriage that even Barbie and Ken, who live in a fantasy world, can’t hack the ups and downs of a relationship.
Welcome to a world where “’till death do us part” really means “’till I find something better and divorce your sorry ass.” In a country where the divorce rate is 50 percent, perhaps this holiday which is supposed to commemorate love, is focusing too much on money. But it seems that it isn’t girls who are spending money (not this time). According to the National Flowers and Plants Association, over 90 percent of Valentine’s Day flowers are purchased by men. Sorry guys, but if you don’t want to play the fool to this consumer holiday then why not beat the system and prove yourself the most thoughtful of all the procrastinating boyfriends by cooking a romantic candle-lit dinner or simply surprising her by doing her laundry.
But why do we just go out of our way to show our feelings on this one particularly overrated day? What about the other 364 days a year? Those sweet notes scribbled inside your psychology book on Nov. 12 or May 23 or the breakfast he or she cooked you after that completely drunken night of amazing sex on April 7 are the more important things to remember than what feats of love they were guilt tripped into performing on Feb. 14 by some crazy American Hallmark Holiday.
So this year, show your loved one how much you care by making it count every day, not just the one they’re expecting it on. Wouldn’t flowers seem like a much more thoughtful gesture if your boyfriend surprised you with them on a day when every other guy in the world is also buying his girlfriend flowers too?
So my cynics of love, if you’re feeling bummed because you’re single while all the happy couples frolic through the quads and make sappy eyes across the tables in the Student Center, choose to celebrate something meaningful yourself. Celebrate Feb. 14 as the day Sir Alexander Fleming accidentally discovered his mold by-product called penicillin to cure infection, or celebrate the first photograph of an U.S. President taken of James Polk on this day in 1849. You can attach any meaning to Feb. 14, but in the end it’s really just another excuse for us to eat, drink and be merry. So raise your glasses high because whether you love it or hate it, Valentine’s Day only comes once a year, and that is something worth celebrating.