Valentine’s Day, the day of love… yada, yada, blah, blah. Everyone knows about it. Valentine’s Day is just an excuse for couples to do romantic things in public. Like, no, lady, we do not need to see that your husband got you a $30,000 ring.  There are so many expectations.  

Valentine’s Day has gone from being about love to being about commercialization.  The holiday promotes consumerism with how many advertisements there are about it. The advertisers just talk about buying things and not about ways to express love without wasting money.  People assume everyone has the money to buy their partner flowers or take them on some expensive date. Not everybody has enough money to spoil their partner. That creates more pressure on some couples because they believe they have to go all out on the gifts they get for their partner. 

It’s just a stressful day in general. I mean, imagine how the restaurants feel when they’re packed with couples galore.  The owners must love the business but the servers must feel overwhelmed.  Plus even getting a reservation for a restaurant on Valentine’s Day is a nightmare!

At the same time, it makes people feel lonely. Does no one think about how single people feel?  It’s hard to see couples do romantic things when you have no one to do those things with. Valentine’s Day is just a painful reminder for those who are single. Plus there’s a large amount of couples who break up on or right before Valentine’s Day.  In fact, the Tuesday before Valentine’s Day, sometimes called “Red Tuesday”, is statistically the most common day for breakups in a year due to the pressure of romantic expectations associated with the holiday.   Talk about stress!

In general, the value of Valentine’s Day is questionable, at best. Companies take advantage of it to sell more items and make people lose money. It’s no longer about love, it’s all about buying things. It also doesn’t help with the loneliness that single people feel. Which leads to resentment towards the day. People should stop caring about buying expensive things and instead focus on showing their partner that they love them by giving them attention, spending time with them, and even making something handmade. Stop promoting consumerism for this so-called holiday and instead promote love for real.