The Rocket

Issue date: 2/10/06 Section: Life

Colin McGuire - Staff Writer

Let's talk about something that you hate. Let's talk about the one thing that makes lonely high school and college kids squirm each and every year. Let's talk about the one thing that still stings your divorced parent each year even though he or she has been removed from the situation for 25 years. Let's talk about the one thing that makes fat kids feel fatter. Let's talk about Valentine's Day.

Word on the street is that this Tuesday is the big V-Day. It is the one day that all of the masculine, heartless, cheating men in this world get to make up for all of their wrongdoings with a purchase of processed sweets from Dollar General, fake flowers from Wal-Mart or overpriced jewelry from anywhere aside from Western Pennsylvania. How romantic.

Here is my issue. If you are in a relationship with someone you love, regardless of if you are married or not, why is it that someone picked only one day in the middle of February to say that this is the only time you are allowed to prove it? Why can't you buy your sweet a sweet on Oct. 29 and have it mean just as much as it would whenever you and your loved one gather this coming Tuesday?

I mean if you love someone, sure this holiday may have been designed for you, but let's be honest about the people it truly affects - the lonely ones. The people who have no one to share the day with. The people who will sit at home and watch their "Fresh Prince" DVDs, both seasons one and two, by themselves, eating nothing but Ruffles and calming their consciences by drinking Diet Coke.

Valentine's Day wasn't made to be a time of love and affection. Valentine's Day was made to throw it in the face of each and every hopeless romantic out there who has no one, and may never have anyone ever. I mean, as long as you have a significant other, you can buy them things. Why not show up at her house on a random day in May with a box of chocolates and a bouquet of flowers? Shouldn't that mean just as much as it would if he showered you with gifts on the day of red? If not, maybe that love you feel so strongly about isn't as certain as you thought.

With that said, what happened to the art of gift giving on this contradicting holiday anyways? It seems that each year I always hear of a case where the boy forgot about it, or simply just settled to give his loved one a rose, or a teddy bear he found at Giant Eagle, or a box of chocolates he found in the clearance bin at Target.

Continued...

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