The love bug is in the air, so grab your face masks and your wallets!

While the forecast of frigid February brings snowstorms and high heating bills, romance can be found in grocery stores and television ads. Preparation for this popular holiday is made weeks in advance. Seats are reserved at expensive restaurants for date nights. Heart-shaped pepperoni and cheese pizzas are preordered for platonic hangouts with friends. Drug stores such as CVS and Rite-aid display their heart-shaped Hallmark cards and dedicate isles to affordable fuzzy teddy bears in the last weeks of January. 

This sensory overload of pink and red makes us ponder, is the holiday as great as we think?

First, we examine the culprit of these chocolate boxes and gifts, Hallmark. Due to their influence in romance films and infamous greeting cards, they have commercialized the holiday. Valentine’s Day became the Christmas of the New Year, with its excessive gift-buying and consumption. These gifts include greeting cards, flower bouquets, and sweets. If you were in search of such an item, beware of the inflated ticket price caused by the higher demand. The expenses of Valentine’s Day add up quickly and it is expected that you “treat” yourself and others with your purchases. Ironically, on the following days, you can find these same lovely gifts for a heavy discount.

Then you have to account for the stress and pressure Valentine’s Day puts on couples and single individuals. In the modern era, romance is displayed by posting pictures on your social media. On Valentine’s Day, the homepage of your Instagram and Snapchat are full of appreciation posts and validation seeking. Before you know it, you fall into one of two categories: a single Pringle or a love dove. If you are a love dove, you want to tell the world that YOU had the best date or that YOUR significant other is the best. If you are a single Pringle, you are watching these posts being uploaded and are feeling envious of what you do not have. This interaction between the couple and the singles creates an egocentric war stating that if you do not receive a gift or post, you are left out of the festivities. 

At last, the answer to our question is subjective. It is true that the holiday forces couples to make grand plans and buy gifts while the single counterpart feels even more alone. Although love is complicated, February 14th is just another day to surround yourself with people you care for; romantic, platonic, or relative.