by CLARE FLANAGAN - Feb. 7, 2019
Every year, February rolls around with large displays of nauseating red and pink hearts in almost every store window, signs advertising the biggest, brightest and most expensive jewelry imaginable and cheap chocolates appearing out of nowhere to crowd your local pharmacy’s aisleway. Quite frankly, it’s all too much.
Though the holiday, originally called Lupercalia, was a celebration of love and fertility observed by the ancient Romans, it has evolved into a commercial holiday dedicated to roping in consumers’ money and often leaving them with a broken heart and an empty wallet when the relationship ends.
And while I’ve been called a cynic and a naysayer of love (more often than I’d like to admit), I thoroughly enjoy showing my loved ones how much they mean to me. The difference is that I don’t use Valentine’s Day as an excuse to express that. There’s so much hype surrounding a day celebrating the love that should be celebrated every day through all the little things that people do. Love should be shown in the kind words we speak all the time, not once a year in a bouquet of flowers and an overpriced teddy bear that takes up more space than I do.
So if you're going to participate in the gift-giving aspect of Valentine’s Day, I have some strong advice for all the hopeless romantics out there: try to give your cheesy gifts outside of school because if I have to see one more couple making out in the hallway over a ridiculously large bouquet, I’m seriously going to vomit. So, thanks, loves!
Want to see the other side? Check out Valentine's Day: To Be