The most annoying thing about Valentine's Day isn't the massive consumerism, the tacky things you’re expected to buy or the nauseously sweet couples everywhere reminding you of just how long you’ve been single. The most annoying thing about Valentine’s Day is trying to ignore it while the majority of people use all their time and energy to tell everybody else how little they care about Valentine’s Day.
(Not a true quotation, but close enough I hope)
It was an old post, one that I had read a long time ago. But I had forgotten it and was at that time expecting to post something about the stupidity of St. Valentine’s Day on Facebook (as usual). The post therefore made me feel rather guilty and I decided to do exactly what it said I should do: To ignore St. Valentine’s Day in silence.
That proved to be surprisingly easy throughout most of the day. I live and work in Annecy, France and it seems as if the tradition of roses, love letters and heart shaped chocolates has not arrived here. There was cake at work, but that was just because my co-workers are awesome, not because the day was anything special. Neither was there anything special about Valentine’s Day at the gym this evening. I was expecting at least an “A Valentine’s gift that keeps giving – get your loved one a Visaform membership today”, but no, there was nothing. In fact, sitting here and analysing my day, I did not even notice any Valentine’s adverts while walking through the central shopping street either today. Truly, St. Valentine’s Day was not at all difficult to ignore.
It should be noted that in saying “ignoring” I am not referring to completely banishing St. Valentine’s Day to the depth of oblivion. I was all the time aware of the fact that today was the 14th of February, aka Valentine’s Day. I simply ignored it the way most people ignore 3rd of September (the day WWII started), Ramadan or the American National day: you might know it’s there, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to make a fuss about it (note: when I say “most people” I refer to the non-Muslims and non-Americans as is percentage of the world’s 7 billion people. I’m not trying to offend anyone, just making an educated assumption. Don’t worry though; I’m sure no one will be offended if you guys don’t care about the national day of Norway or Christ’s Ascension either). Still, it was rather strange not to have been exposed to ANY signs of Valentine’s Day. I guess two years in the UK really had set its mark.
Ignoring the date did however come to an abrupt end as I visited Facebook. The site itself had taken the liberty of finding all the St. Valentine’s comments from my “friends” so I could go through them in one batch (That was actually pretty neat. A pat on the back for you, Zuckerberg). The comments were often exactly the kinds the Oatmeal had been so critical to; criticising the tradition as a capitalistic abomination or just stupid. There were those who liked it, but the negative comments did make a much stronger impression.
All those comments made me decide to defend the tradition. I do not know if it was due to an inner need to go against the flow, if it was so that I could set myself as intellectually superior to the masses or if I all in all like Valentine’s Day. Never the less, here I am, writing this post.
I don’t know much about St. Valentine’s Day and for once I’m not going to read the Wikipedia article before writing the blog-post. All I know is this: At the centre of St. Valentine’s Day as I know it, there is love. Yes, it sounds really corny, but there it is. It would have been great if love was all around all the time, but it’s not. We’re often too busy to realise how much we love someone and we have even less time to show them how much we care. In that sense St. Valentine’s Day is nice. It reminds us of the fact that there is love out there and celebrates the greatness of love.
But there are other traditions that do just that. Christmas is one of those; God loved us all so much that he sacrificed his son so that we should live eternal. We are supposed to get together with our loved ones and celebrate how great it is love and to be loved. For if God could do so much to us all, the least we can do is to try loving each other this once a year. But it’s not just us Christians who celebrate Christmas. Atheists and agnostics might not believe in the religious principles of Christmas, but they can accept the message of love. The tradition has become secularised, being only a season of love for those that does not care about Jesus.
Christmas is also the greatest celebration of capitalism and consumerism there is. The shopping craze and decoration hype has taken the focus away from the message of love. Still we do celebrate, often finding back to the core when all the presents bought, the tree is decorated and the neighbour got the price for best garden decorations. So it should be about St. Valentine’s. Love is comes in many shapes and colours, not just pink hearts or red roses. Let lovers celebrate the day in the way they want to.
I hope that next year, I will not feel like ignoring the celebration of St. Valentine. I will ignore the pressure of consumerism. Instead, I will think of all the great things about this day: Schoolchildren blushing while reading homemade notes from secret admirers. Young couples holding hands, first kisses and confessions of love. Parents stealing glances and walking arm in arm while their kids look the other way. Older couples dining at a restaurant together, remembering when they used to be young and telling each other how they are still as handsome/beautiful as the first day they met. Even at the graveyards there can be beauty on St. Valentine’s; thousands of candles, each one telling of a love that not even death managed to quench. That is what we should think of today. Never mind what Hollywood or capitalism says. To love costs nothing. Let lovers have their one day. Better was if it was like that all year, but at least this one day.
All this is for couples. This is not a day for the single. However, that does not mean one needs to sulk. We can be happy for those of our friends and family who does have someone special on this day. We can look at all those things I mentioned before and rejoice; for if there is so much love out there, surely it will be some for us one day. And even if you are still not convinced and still believe it is all stupid, why bother about it? It’s a day a year. Let them have their ignorant bliss.
After all, it’s just like any other day, right?
