By Kacie Svoboda
Valentines Day, like New Years Eve, is a day when most people have grandiose ideas of what wonderful events the day will bring. On New Years, there may be visions of sipping champagne at a lavish party, dressed in a shimmering sequined dress and clearly having a grand time. However, the reality may more closely resemble ordering in a pizza and watching Netflix in your sweats before switching over to watch the ball drop on TV.
Valentine’s Day, on the other hand, can conjure up images of candlelit dinners or a romantic scavenger hunt a la Pinterest for those in a relationship or a card and roses from a secret admirer for those who are single. However, for the majority of those celebrating the holiday with a significant other, the reality quite often does not live up to the hype. And on my single Valentine’s Days, I can tell you how rarely that secret admirer actually made an appearance.
Where did all this pressure come from though? Valentine’s Day doesn’t even have romantic origins. The day is named for a bishop who was put to death for going against the Roman leader Claudius II, who felt that unmarried men made better soldiers than married men. He made it against the law for soldiers to be married, believing that married men would be too worried about their families and so would become fearful and weak.
Bishop Valentine felt sorry for young lovers and so began performing marriage ceremonies in secret. When Claudius II found out about this, he had Valentine arrested and Valentine is believed to have been executed on Feb. 14, 270 A.D.
For many, thinking of Feb. 14 as a day of execution may be more accurate than the love fest it’s touted to be. Even those in a happy relationship can find it extremely hard to live up to the red and pink fantasy. For example, I have a friend whose husband always buys her a beautiful and costly bouquet of roses. But my friend is always rather blasé about them. She explained that her husband calls the florist to order the flowers, has them sign the card and then bills it. So a few weeks later, the bill arrives in the mail and my friend has to write the check for that “thoughtful” bouquet.
And speaking of that bouquet of roses, when they are sent to the office, they become part of a game of one-up-manship. You may get a perfect peace rose in a lovely vase but two offices down your coworker gets an enormous bouquet of two dozen red roses.
Now, don’t get me wrong; many people have a perfectly lovely Valentine’s Day. Some come home and their spouse has made their favorite meal, even though they don’t like it themselves. And contrary to the hype placed on flowers and chocolates, I’ve heard a lot of wives say the most romantic thing is when their spouse does the laundry or cleans the house unsolicited.
It seems that a successful Valentine’s Day depends more on keeping expectations in reality than planning the perfect date. This is why I always try to keep my hopes as low as possible and keep the focus on what went right and not what went wrong.
But it’s hard to do. For most of my life, I’ve been bombarded with films, cards and commercials that each promote the expectation of a grand gesture. And as unrealistic as some of them seem, would I hate being surprised with a choreographed song and dance number? Well, I guess there are some extenuating circumstances with that example. But I think what should make all these instances of commercialized romance appealing is the thought put in them. For example, if I was surprised with a choreographed song and dance number, I better not be put on the spot in front of a crowd of people. That doesn’t sound romantic to me. It sounds awkward and embarrassing.
I believe that it’s way more important to put thought into what your significant other wants and likes than it is to spend a ton of money or copy something you saw in a YouTube video.
So go ahead and get your Valentine chocolates, if they like chocolates, and roses, if they like roses, and please make sure he or she doesn’t end up paying for them.
Valentines Day, like New Years Eve, is a day when most people have grandiose ideas of what wonderful events the day will bring. On New Years, there may be visions of sipping champagne at a lavish party, dressed in a shimmering sequined dress and clearly having a grand time. However, the reality may more closely resemble ordering in a pizza and watching Netflix in your sweats before switching over to watch the ball drop on TV.
Valentine’s Day, on the other hand, can conjure up images of candlelit dinners or a romantic scavenger hunt a la Pinterest for those in a relationship or a card and roses from a secret admirer for those who are single. However, for the majority of those celebrating the holiday with a significant other, the reality quite often does not live up to the hype. And on my single Valentine’s Days, I can tell you how rarely that secret admirer actually made an appearance.
Where did all this pressure come from though? Valentine’s Day doesn’t even have romantic origins. The day is named for a bishop who was put to death for going against the Roman leader Claudius II, who felt that unmarried men made better soldiers than married men. He made it against the law for soldiers to be married, believing that married men would be too worried about their families and so would become fearful and weak.
Bishop Valentine felt sorry for young lovers and so began performing marriage ceremonies in secret. When Claudius II found out about this, he had Valentine arrested and Valentine is believed to have been executed on Feb. 14, 270 A.D.
For many, thinking of Feb. 14 as a day of execution may be more accurate than the love fest it’s touted to be. Even those in a happy relationship can find it extremely hard to live up to the red and pink fantasy. For example, I have a friend whose husband always buys her a beautiful and costly bouquet of roses. But my friend is always rather blasé about them. She explained that her husband calls the florist to order the flowers, has them sign the card and then bills it. So a few weeks later, the bill arrives in the mail and my friend has to write the check for that “thoughtful” bouquet.
And speaking of that bouquet of roses, when they are sent to the office, they become part of a game of one-up-manship. You may get a perfect peace rose in a lovely vase but two offices down your coworker gets an enormous bouquet of two dozen red roses.
Now, don’t get me wrong; many people have a perfectly lovely Valentine’s Day. Some come home and their spouse has made their favorite meal, even though they don’t like it themselves. And contrary to the hype placed on flowers and chocolates, I’ve heard a lot of wives say the most romantic thing is when their spouse does the laundry or cleans the house unsolicited.
It seems that a successful Valentine’s Day depends more on keeping expectations in reality than planning the perfect date. This is why I always try to keep my hopes as low as possible and keep the focus on what went right and not what went wrong.
But it’s hard to do. For most of my life, I’ve been bombarded with films, cards and commercials that each promote the expectation of a grand gesture. And as unrealistic as some of them seem, would I hate being surprised with a choreographed song and dance number? Well, I guess there are some extenuating circumstances with that example. But I think what should make all these instances of commercialized romance appealing is the thought put in them. For example, if I was surprised with a choreographed song and dance number, I better not be put on the spot in front of a crowd of people. That doesn’t sound romantic to me. It sounds awkward and embarrassing.
I believe that it’s way more important to put thought into what your significant other wants and likes than it is to spend a ton of money or copy something you saw in a YouTube video.
So go ahead and get your Valentine chocolates, if they like chocolates, and roses, if they like roses, and please make sure he or she doesn’t end up paying for them.