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Letter from the Editor
Why I Avoided Valentine’s Day
Anna Daly/Managing Editor
anna_daly@pipeline.owens.edu
Valentine Schmalentine.
Valentine’s Day is a joke to me. It is useless. It is a waste of
a day. It is sickening.
On February 14, people flock to restaurants, buy flowers, gifts and candy,
and treat others differently than they do every other day. There’s
hugs and kisses and mushy sentimental goodness.
I don’t buy it. It seems to me like a giant apology for mistreating
people the rest of the year. Valentine’s Day is one day of cute
greeting cards and thoughts and “love.” It is one day out
of the year that people devote time to caring about their loved ones.
It is one day.
It all just seems to me like an excuse to treat people like dirt for 364
days of the year. Shouldn’t we care for people all the time? Why
does there need to be a Valentine’s Day?
I appreciate the concept of Valentine’s Day. I’m a fan of
caring for people and showing love, but when we need to set aside a day
to do so rather than relying on our own innate concern for humankind,
something is sincerely wrong.
This is a rough world full of pain and hatred; a communal day of setting
that all aside is lovely. But the fact that we need that—one day
of love—in our society is utterly sad.
Perhaps we should expend a little less effort into this one day and love
one another all year. Perhaps we should make every day an excuse to show
that we’re not completely apathetic and heartless people.
Until that happens, I’m not interested in celebrating Valentine’s
Day.
But those little hearts with the words on them? They’re awesome.
They should totally sell those all year.