14 DAY TRIAL // Valentine’s Day was over the weekend, on February 14, as most of us have probably been more or less painfully remembered. As always, the streets were flooded with small-time vendors with heart cards, heart toys and heart everything on display, while the restaurants and pubs were crowded with lovers eager to do as some unknown authority told them to: celebrate their love according to a well-established pattern.
Although on the surface this is one of the most endearing traditions that are celebrated at the same time in many countries, the reality is that it has turned into yet another marketing opportunity for companies to rip us off. As Tanya Gold says for the Daily Mail, Valentine’s Day has become an idiotic tradition that is less and less about the love, and more about the money with the passing of each year. No common-sense lover would actually do the things they’re supposed to just because it’s Valentine’s Day.
“Love – of course – is all about intimacy. Well, it’s supposed to be, and like a glittering, sobbing snowflake, no two loves are ever the same. Except on Valentine’s Day when everything is the same – the stupid cards, the gross food, the matching couples with matching expressions. When everyone is doing it, at the same time and in the same way, how can it be personal? How can it be special? How can it be yours?” Gold adds about the annual day that has somehow managed to ruin whatever romanticism was still left in our chaotic lives.
With those who are not in a relationship, Valentine’s Day is all the more unforgiving. Just like Christmas, it’s a painful reminder that they’re alone, while others are, obviously, out celebrating it as they should. This is also why the number of suicide attempts peaks on this day, with countless loners trying to take their lives simply because some tradition, corrupted by marketing, is telling them that alone is the last thing they should be.
In the end, as it has often been argued, Valentine’s Day should be everyday and, unless we’re looking to lose even the last bit of poetry we still have, we should do our best to fight the shrewd marketing that supports it. Because succumbing to it makes us just like the millions of other people around the world, and our love story just as uninteresting, unoriginal and un-ours as theirs.