by Kevin Burton
A co-worker of Jeannette’s told her that he and his wife didn’t celebrate Valentine’s day, calling it a “fake holiday.”
Many people agree. But as it turns out it’s worse than that.
“Valentine’s Day is a time to celebrate romance and love and kissy-face fealty. But the origins of this festival of candy and cupids are actually dark, bloody — and a bit muddled,” wrote NPR reporter Arnie Seipel.
“Though no one has pinpointed the exact origin of the holiday, one place to start is ancient Rome. From Feb. 13 to 15, the Romans celebrated the feast of Lupercalia. The men sacrificed a goat and a dog, then whipped women with the hides of the animals they had just slain.”
The Roman romantics “were drunk. They were naked,” according to Noel Lenski, a religious studies professor at Yale University. Young women would line up for the men to hit them, Lenski said. They believed this would make them fertile.
“The brutal fete included a matchmaking lottery in which young men drew the names of women from a jar. The couple would then be, um, coupled up for the duration of the festival — or longer, if the match was right,” Seipel wrote.
Guys, if you’re stumped for new Valentine’s ideas, don’t go there.
“Today, the holiday is big business. But that commercialization has spoiled the day for many,” Seipel wrote.
The commercialization, I believe, was the center of the objections of Jeannette’s co-worker. It is also chief among the complaints of writer Sophie Messenger.
Messenger, on her website, likened Valentine’s Day, with its hearts-and-cupids, big-bucks traditions, to the excrement of a large barnyard animal.
“Up until a few years ago, I bought into the ‘romantic’ idea of it,” Messenger wrote. “I don’t anymore. I think it’s a piece of commercial b——t, and it just makes me laugh, to be honest.”
“The whole thing is a fake.”
“I’m not a sad, lonely, Valentines day pooper, envious of my coupled friends by the way, I am happily married,” Messenger wrote.
“But love isn’t about giving your loved one presents on a day prescribed by the cards and flowers industry. Love is about all the normal everyday things you do for each other. Love is about support when the going gets tough.”
Can’t you hear that chorus of amens from guys worldwide!
“Once when I lived in Paris I had a boyfriend who was ‘romantic’ in the sense that he wrote me love notes all the time. Like the time he wrote ‘I love you’ on each one of my eggs in the fridge,” Messenger wrote. “It made my girlfriends swoon. Only when I had a bad day at work, he didn’t want to know.”
“It wasn’t love. It was show-off b——t.
“Having had this experience makes me appreciate my husband more. He isn’t a romantic note kind of person but he is a rock when I have wobbles, like the time he woke up at 5 a.m. to listen to me talk and hugged me while I cried when I came back from a long, difficult birth. That’s worth a million ‘I love you’ eggs.
“I don’t buy into the idea that one’s love is measured by the gift received on valentines day,” Messenger wrote. “I am saddened that personal ‘romance validation’ rests on whether one receives cards/flowers etc. or not at the office. It’s all show and no substance.”
Messenger says that supposedly-romantic Feb. 14 dinner for two isn’t all it’s cracked up to be and people are better off just keeping it real.
“When I used to buy into the Valentines thing, I used to go out with my then boyfriend for (an) evening meal. It was hard to find a table somewhere nice. I now couldn’t think of anything worse than spending the evening in a packed restaurant, ‘having’ to be romantic, surrounded by other couples doing the same thing.”
“Give me true real-life love every day, warts and all, over the glossy fake version of romantic love peddled by Valentines Day and the media.”
“True real-life love, like normal real-life life, is a sinusoid curve. It’s full of highs and lows, full of tears and laughter, anger and joy. It’s not photoshopped.”
“It’s got wrinkles and imperfections. It’s not always easy. But it’s real.”
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