Nothing says “Love” like……fill in the blank. As Charlie Brown once said…..Ugh!

At the risk of being branded a cynic, a malcontent…I have a confession to make: I don’t like Valentine’s day. There. I said it. It’s out there. What’s not to love about Valentine’s Day? For one - Valentine’s Day has become yet another overly-commercialized pseudo holiday rife with cheap symbolic swag that is supposed to somehow demonstrate one’s affection for another. Well Mr. and Mrs. Marketeer….you are good sales people, but I’m just not willing to buy yet.

Valentine’s day promotes the idea that romance is something for special occasions. When two people are really in love, they don’t have to demonstrate this with meaningless trinkets. Rather, their love is manifested in many beautiful, non-material ways and it is largely unspoken. As Gibran Khalil so eloquently states in “The Prophet:”

Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.

Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;

For love is sufficient unto love.

I reject the ideas that romance is only for special occasions and that buying things somehow demonstrates affection. Think about this after your significant other makes that pseudo-earnest, last minute trip to Walgreens…

Does it actually feel good knowing that someone is forcibly giving you a gift?