by Armywriter

Created on: December 12, 2008

Valentine's Day is more than just commercial hype. Whether or not some treat it as such is another question all together. The history of Valentine's Day is more than just that of what the media and other commercial entities make of it. It is a day that is supposed to be devoted toward romance.

For Valentine's Day to be a success the man has to take initiative. A major need for women is romance or intimacy. This is the one day per year where, whether they believe it is a commercial Holiday or not, expect to be romanced. The thing is that they want romance year round, however, given the average American family schedule it is hard to meet that need regularly. So we have a day where the whole nation can find one opportunity together to make their women feel special.

Now businesses and media would be stupid not to take advantage of this Holiday. This is where they can make a good load of money by creating propaganda and adding ridiculous amounts of pressure on the couples. With that additional pressure, couples are now finding themselves doing things for each other on Valentine's Day out of social responsibility or obligation, thus taking away the essence of why they should be doing things for each other in the first place. While this is supposed to be an opportunity to strengthen their relationship and enjoy each others company and sacrifice, they are now finding themselves in a sort of depression. We work enough at our jobs or at school, our home life is stressful enough as it is, so why on earth do we allow this Holiday to become tainted with anything other than pure romantic intimacy?

The heart of Valentine's Day is still alive and through all the crap our media dumps on us it is still beautiful to see a couple holding hands as they walk. It's amazing to see a couple who has trouble getting along smiling at each other, happy to have the others company. You see despite the negatives of this "Holiday" you will never see on any other day of the year so many couples, especially married ones, being intimate in public. This is a fact. There is not another day of the year where so many men concentrate so hard on what they could do to make their woman smile. And that is the essence of Valentine's Day. Not to find yourself watching talk shows and listening to ridiculous claims of obligation for the day. It is about connecting with your significant other, romanticizing and being happy, just the two of you.

In closing I will agree that the commercialization of Valentine's Day is a bit extreme, however it is the people that make this holliday, not corperations or the media. Responsibility falls upon the couple to put everything to the side and for at least one day a year go out of their way to make the other happy.

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