Serving the GW Community since 1904

The GW Hatchet

AN INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER SERVING THE GW COMMUNITY SINCE 1904

The GW Hatchet

Serving the GW Community since 1904

The GW Hatchet

NEWSLETTER
Sign up for our twice-weekly newsletter!

Officials name senior vice president, chief of staff
By Fiona Riley, Assistant News Editor • March 26, 2024

VALENTINE’S DAY GUIDE: FROM THE LOVE SEAT


You want to buy your loved one a Valentine’s Day present but you have no idea what to get. So you figure you will take advantage of the opportunities modern technology has to offer, double-click on Netscape and search Yahoo for “Valentine’s Day Presents.” What you find is somewhat surprising.

After scrolling down past the electronic greeting card sites and passing “Kathy’s V-Day crafts for Toddlers” – she really does wonders with some doilies, Popsicle sticks and Elmer’s glue – you come to a plethora of Web sites devoted to a bitter hatred of Valentine’s Day.

Do people really hate Valentine’s Day that much to devote time and energy to actually create Web sites to advertise their bitterness? Apparently so.

I clicked curiously on some of the links, expecting to find the angry ranting of some pre-pubescent teenage girl mad that her best friend ditched their anti-V-Day toenail-painting party to be dropped off at Applebee’s with her newly acquired boyfriend.

But that wasn’t it at all. These people are mostly middle-aged men, who should have grown out of this behavior years ago.

One disgruntled Valentine’s basher proclaims that Valentine’s Day “is enough to make a free thinking individual want to gouge his own eyeballs out with an old rusty pair of scissors,” on his site. Another man, who actually has a statistics page documenting the last time he was kissed, blames love and Valentine’s Day for overpopulation, date rape, spousal abuse and AIDS.

What spawned all this Valentines Day hatred? And is it deserved? Let’s start at the very beginning.

Contrary to what most skeptics believe, Valentine’s Day was not created by Hallmark or Necco – the candy company that makes the conversation hearts that seem to get racier each year. In fact, the holiday actually has some historical significant.

As one legend goes, Valentine was a priest who served Rome in the third century. During this time, Emperor Claudius II decided single men made better soldiers than those with wives and families, so he outlawed marriage for young single men. This is where the whole male fear of commitment started – at one time they were just law-abiding citizens.

Anyway, Valentine didn’t agree with Claudius, so he continued to perform secret marriages for young lovers. Of course, he was discovered and put to death. I’m sure St. Valentine would be so proud his name is honored every year with stale candy hearts that say “fax me.”

So the whole observance is rooted in death and defiance, maybe that’s why so many feel such antipathy towards it. Let’s press on to modern times.

One of the most horrific and inhumane episodes in American history occurred on Valentine’s Day in 1929. At 2122 North Clark St. in Chicago the most spectacular mob hit in gangland history took place: the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.

During a rendezvous to smuggle Canadian whiskey into the country, Al Capone, from a lounge chair in Florida, arranged for the whiskey truck to be hijacked and for the seven men involved to be lined up inside the Clark Street warehouse and sprayed with machine gun fire. Hmmm, I’m beginning to detect a pattern.

And today the brutality continues. Take my roommate’s tragic Valentine’s Day woe for example. On Feb. 14, 1992 she bounded into fifth grade, pigtails in hair, lunchbox in hand. She was so excited to share this special day with her boyfriend she even baked him cookies. But in keeping with the spirit of evil Emperor Claudius and cold-blooded gangster Al Capone, little Nat Gordon dumped her, right in the middle of the kick-ball field during recess. How heartless. Big loss though – I’ve had those cookies and they are damn good.

Now teen magazines everywhere devote entire special issues to Valentine’s “say anythings” and “why me’s?” that fly off the shelves. What gives girls more pleasure than hearing about the heartbreaking humiliation of another? And Valentine’s Day provides plenty of that.

“I told him I loved him and he told me I had fat thighs.;” “I surprised him at his office dressed like a heart and he was sleeping with his secretary.;” “We went on a Valentine’s vacation and he left me in Nepal and took the traveler’s checks. I had to swim home.;” The sob stories are endless, it is all very tragic.

Do these people who harbor such distaste for Valentine’s Day have a point? Could the holiday really be cursed? Maybe red really symbolizes blood, not love. Maybe not; but at any rate Valentine’s Day certainly has a dark side for many. Hey, there’s a new market for Hallmark. Sell cards commemorating the deaths of St. Valentine and seven Chicago gangsters. There’s definitely an audience for that.

More to Discover
Donate to The GW Hatchet