Are you looking for genuine love in a committed relationship? Then you might want to skip the whole Valentine’s Day tradition. Here are four great reasons why.
1. Why Should the Celebration of Love be Restricted to a Single Day?
Love is such a substantive and weighty sentiment that it seems wrong to trivialize it by honoring it for just one day. If you value the idea of abiding love that lasts through decades, and gets couples through the worst and best times of their lives, don’t you agree that any faithful celebration of love should last more than 24 hours? We’re talking about love; a life-altering human emotion that inspires people to sacrifice, move mountains, and perform acts of blind passion. People die for love, for heaven’s sake. One day can’t do that justice.
2. There Are Other Days When You Need it More
If you’re like most women—and there’s no reason to think you’re not—you experience many days where you feel unlovable, incapable, lost, inferior, or just a little bit blue. Instead of Valentine’s Day, aren’t those the days when it would be extraordinarily spectacular to have your significant other notice your mood without you even saying anything, and try to make you feel better? Wouldn’t it feel amazing if your slightly depressed day ended with some incredibly romantic gesture from your loved one? Imagine if all your bad days ended with your loved one making you feel hopeful and carefree. That’s the kind of gesture that expresses true love when you need it most.
3. It’s Not Fair
Seriously, how meaningful is it for your loved one to stop off at the carry-out store on his way home from work and pick up a plastic-wrapped rose and a heart-shaped box of cheap chocolates along with his nightly six-pack? Valentine’s Day makes it too easy for guys to fake being romantic. Heck, in a lot of towns, there are enterprising men standing around at intersections selling roses and candy on the street. Your guy doesn’t have to do anything more than roll down his window and dole out a few bucks to a street vendor. Meanwhile, you’ve been home all day slathering yourself up with perfumed lotions and slaving over a hot stove cooking up some romantic home-cooked meal for the two of you. And guess who’s still going to get stuck with the dishes? Sorry, that’s just not fair.
4. It’s Too Expensive
Did you know that on average, Americans spend $130 annually on St. Valentine’s Day? Did you budget for that in your household? Or is all that going on the credit card where it will keep accruing interest for the next five years? That $130 goes for things like flowers, dinners, cards and gifts. Of course, some guys go all out—usually because you’ve trained him—on things like expensive jewelry. If you don’t mind him blowing the budget on gifts for you once a year, by all means, celebrate Valentine’s Day with a guilt-free conscience. Just don’t expect it to be genuine.
Valentine’s Day was invented by the church eons ago in a bid to Christianize what was a pagan fertility feast. Europeans were the first to commercialize it with cards, and American’s happily joined in soon after. As long as you know that the modern Valentine’s Day holiday has little to do with true love, enjoy it. But for those of you looking for genuine gestures of affection from your loved one, it’s safe to say you can skip Valentine’s Day and concentrate on the true expressions of love.
