From raving risqué Roman parties, to the honoring of an apparent saint whose origins are somewhat unclear, to now, when you’ve either got a date to go to an excessively overpriced dinner with or you stay home and watch romcoms while you binge on cheap discount chocolate, Valentine’s Day has always been associated with love in some shape or form.

    And along with many things of the early twentieth century, America decided to mass produce love with Hallmark cards, where they did your love letter writing for you. I love cheesy and occasionally touching Hallmark cards as much as the next person, but Valentine’s Day has become a day of doom for the mass majority of us who either find Valentine’s Day stressing or saddening.

    It’s been enforced in our lives for as long as we can remember. We set our scene in kindergarten, a time when most everyone in the class loved most everyone else, and if someone was in a fight, it was probably over a stolen Lincoln Log.

    The kids are sat down two weeks before Valentine’s Day and told they are going to begin a project. Now, this is in a range of time in children’s lives when those words still bring genuine joy and excitement, and so the whole class beings to buzz. When the teacher announces that the class will be making Valentine’s Day boxes, the children are beside themselves, because they get to use paint and glue and get lots of candy at once.

    If only it were so easy now just to buy an unoriginal card with a 3D puppy and a cheesy message in it with a sucker. Or maybe a fake tattoo, if you’re lucky .

    Years later, it’s not that simple anymore. Never mind that love has come into the equation. Once you’re in a relationship you are now obligated to profess your love with some sort of thoughtful gift on a single day. If you do not, then according to society, you don’t love your significant other. Which is wrong.

    Why should we have a select day to show our significant other how much we love them? Why can’t we do that once a month? Once every other week?

    Shouldn’t we be showing our significant other how much we love them every single day? First of all, we never know how much time we have left. Doing something nice for them could be the last thing you do.

    Second of all, when we have one day dedicated to showing our love, and it’s expected of you by everyone and their mother that you do something on that one day, is it really a demonstration solely from our desire to show our significant other how much they mean to us? When gifts and fancy dinners come out of a fear of social scrutiny, they’re not meaningful. The box of chocolates may not be empty, but the feelings very well may be.

    Love doesn’t always show itself in grand gestures of helicopter proposals or four hundred dollar enormous teddy bears. It’s quite often the little things. Giving your significant other the last of your fries. Letting them pick the radio station or Spotify playlist when with any other person in the car you are the sole DJ. Usually these things are not only the more manageable, but the most simple, and truly come from the heart.