Singles stop getting worked up over Valentine's Day

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Luvz2travel

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I keep seeing all these woe is me comments on the internet from singles asking how they are expected to make it through the day on Tuesday without a significant other in their life. I’m like get real. It’s a holiday marketed to death by the card companies, retail stores and flower shops for enough business to keep them in stock till the spring and summer shopping seasons. It’s a nice idea but it’s really become overblown. :eek:🤷:confused: What do you think??
 
Exactly. Many of us who have a love interest think the day has become an overblown enterprise geared to making money for florists, chocolatiers, clothing merchants, and restaurants.

Valentine’s Day is a good day to avoid buying flowers or making restaurant reservations, perhaps even more so than Mothers’ Day weekend.

Buying pork ribs or steaks on Fathers’ Day is another thing, though: You do what you have to do!! 😃
 
I’m single and I’ve always thought that I’d rather get something randomly another day and not when the card companies tell him to…probably because my parents were wonderfully full of love and romance their entire married life and dad would bring flowers or chocolates for my mom at completely unexpected and perfect times. Sometimes he’d bring chocolates or flowers for us girls too. My dad was the only man that ever gave me chocolates … until I met Mr. Right 😃

Also, Feb 14, is St. Cyril’s day…at least that’s what the calendar in the Sacristy said when I glanced at it yesterday.
 
I usually get really sad on Valentines Day because of being single. But you know what February 14th also is? National Single Awareness day (or S.A.D. for short)! 😛
 
Luvz2travel said:
I keep seeing all these woe is me comments on the internet from singles asking how they are expected to make it through the day on Tuesday without a significant other in their life. I’m like get real. It’s a holiday marketed to death by the card companies, retail stores and flower shops for enough business to keep them in stock till the spring and summer shopping seasons. It’s a nice idea but it’s really become overblown. :eek:🤷:confused: What do you think??
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This is what happens when a holiday about CARITAS becomes a holiday about AMOROUS love… something it was never meant to be. What results is a whole frenzy of emotion on the part of some, and a whole lot of hurt on the part of others. I imagine this is much of what pagan roman celebrations were like.

That’s part of the reason my girlfriend and I aren’t doing much special for Valentine’s day in terms of romantic activities… we’re taking it back to a quiet expression of CHRISTIAN CATHOLIC LOVE!
 
Valentine’s Day was always my favorite day or the year. Yes even when I was single! I always looked at it as an opportunity to make cards for my loved ones and tell them I love them. It is an opportunity to show others Christ’s love. You don’t have to buy into the commercialism of it all.
 
Disagree. Badly.

I don’t need Hallmark or seeing a bunch of hearts to remind me what day it is today. Just seeing the date is enough to make me even just a little bit depressed.

If you want to blame somebody, blame the one who dedicated this day to St. Valentine. (Would that be the Church in this case?)

This isn’t to say it was a wrong decision actually and I’m nowhere even close to advocating the abolishment of the holiday. It’ll just make me more depressed.

My point is you don’t need the commercialism to check your calendar, see the number 14 next to the word Febuary and realize you’re a very, very, LONELY individual (who’s not getting any younger)! DX
 
Valentines day is so stupid. I hate when the stores turn pink and red. It irritates me.
 
Lost_Wanderer said:
-]
Disagree. Badly.

I don’t need Hallmark or seeing a bunch of hearts to remind me what day it is today. Just seeing the date is enough to make me even just a little bit depressed.
/-]
If you want to blame somebody, blame the one who dedicated this day to St. Valentine. (Would that be the Church in this case?)

This isn’t to say it was a wrong decision actually and I’m nowhere even close to advocating the abolishment of the holiday. It’ll just make me more depressed.

-]My point is you don’t need the commercialism to check your calendar, see the number 14 next to the word Febuary and realize you’re a very, very, LONELY individual (who’s not getting any younger)! DX/-]
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Don’t blame the church. The feast of St Valentine had NOTHING to do with romantic love until corporations saw it as a chance to make money and began cashing in on the drug-like effects of “romance”.

Valentine’s day is properly about Caritas (charity)… a totally different, CHRISTLIKE love which transcends romance.
 
promethius said:
Valentine’s day is properly about Caritas (charity)… a totally different, CHRISTLIKE love which transcends romance.
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I’ve seen nothing in the Catholic Encyclopedia that suggests this. And frankly, if even my Catholic university had cited the tale of St. Valentine secretly marrying couples, then I have high doubts any wool is going to be pulled over my eyes. The romanticizing of the holiday began before corporations even existed!

Catholic Encyclopedia - Valentine, Saint
The popular customs connected with Saint Valentine’s Day undoubtedly had their origin in a conventional belief generally received in England and France during the Middle Ages, that on February 14, i.e. half way through the second month of the year, the birds began to pair. Thus in Chaucer’s “Parliament of Foules” we read:
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For this was on Seynt Valentyne’s day Whan every foul cometh ther to choose his mate.
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For this reason the day was looked upon as specially consecrated to lovers and as a proper occasion for writing love letters and sending lovers’ tokens. Both the French and English literatures of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries contain allusions to the practice. Perhaps the earliest is to be found in the 34th and 35th “Ballades” of the bilingual poet, John Gower, written in French; but Lydgate and Clauvowe supply other examples. Those who chose each other under these circumstances seem to have been called by each other their Valentines. In the “Paston Letters”, Dame Elizabeth Brews writes thus about a match she hopes to make for her daughter (we modernize the spelling), addressing the favored suitor: “And, cousin mine, upon Monday is St. Valentine’s day and every bird chooseth himself a mate, and if it like you to come on Thursday night, and make provision that you may abide till then, I trust to God that ye shall speak to my husband and I shall pray that we may bring the matter to a conclusion.” Shortly after the young lady herself wrote a letter to the same man addressing it “Unto my rightwell beloved Valentine, John Paston Esquire”. The custom of choosing and sending valentines has of late years fallen into comparative desuetude.
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I adore Valentine’s Day but mainly because I love pink and everything is so pink and red on that day. And anyways, I enjoy giving gifts to my friends and family on this day. Even Mom and Dad. Why not? Everybody loves chocolates and roses. 😃
Keep in mind, the many years I was single I STILL loved it. Something about hearts, teddy bears, and flowers. SO cute, even back then. 👍
 
Havard said:
For all you CAF people: 😃

http://www.heliumfilledballoons.co..../i-love-you-forever-friends-balloon-725-p.jpg
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sniffs Thanks… sniffs ;w; sighs
runwaymodel said:
Keep in mind, the many years I was single I STILL loved it. Something about hearts, teddy bears, and flowers. SO cute, even back then. 👍
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Good for you. I can even sympathize with that actually. Then again, it’s become bittersweet for me when I reflect upon my history (or lack of it) and deep inside it starts feeling very, very cold… <----Warning! Warning! Descent into Emo State detected!!!
 
Some of what has been stated in this thread is absolutely obnoxious.

Obviously this holiday has been turned into an excuse to spend money on garbage but there is certainly nothing bad about showing someone that they are important to you, even if the day has been commercialized.

Also, it is not wrong to feel lonely on Valentines day. Loneliness is very real and very painful. Emotional pain is the greatest we can experience. Just because someone feels lonesome on Valentines day does not make the weak or foolishly sentimental- it shows that they are a normal human who longs for unity and communion. We long for connection with friends, loved ones, and many of us long for a very deep and sacramental union with one other person in marriage. Feeling the ache of single-hood shows that you desire that union and will hopefully be something of a catalyst for us to become the best version of ourselves in preparation for meeting our spouse. Romantic love is wonderful, anyone that says differently is a fool. It doesn’t fill our hearts, but it gives us a taste of a truly beautiful and wonderful gift from God. We will only be able to experience the fullness of that gift when/ if we spend eternity with our God in Heaven.

The difficult part is dealing with this ache and sadness when we see so many people receiving gifts and special attention on Valentines day. I think the best cure is to make yourself a gift to those who need it more than you. I will be woefully alone tomorrow and feel sad about that right now. But love is self giving, if I stew in my lonely juices I can’t be a gift to anyone. Tomorrow I will do my best to love others (and myself in a healthy way). I will also especially pray for the heart of my future wife (God willing) so that she won’t feel the ache of a lonely single person. I will pray for my ex girlfriend (who I care about so deeply) that her new boyfriend will help her feel loved in a special way. I will also consider the souls in this world who have NO ONE to make them feel loved- any day of the year.

I will be praying for all of you and do hope you will remember me also!
 
The older I get (I’m 43) the more I groan every time there is a Holiday “obligation”. I like the post where someone said her dad used to bring her mother chocolates or flowers as a random surprise and even brought her and her sisters candy or flowers sometimes–how sweet! If you love someone, you don’t need a “holiday” to prove it. I don’t like Thanksgiving either…we are to be thankful EVERY day…not just one day a year! Same for Mother’s Day and Father’s Day–it’s a nice thought but tends to make people feel obligated or even sad if they weren’t able to have children or if their parents have passed away. I’m married but I still remember feeling left out in junior high and high school b/c I never had a boyfriend and other girls would be getting valentines and flowers. My best advice to those of you who feel sad on Valentine’s Day b/c you don’t have a significant other, is to make someone else your “valentine”–your niece or nephew or grandma or grandpa or maybe even take flowers to someone in a nursing home with no family. Or send some balloons to a sick child in the hospital. I like the story Mother Angelica tells of her mother spending Christmas alone b/c she was in the convent. Her mother set two places–one for herself and one for Jesus! Because it was Jesus’s birthday after all! Why not make Jesus your sweetheart on Valentine’s Day? He loves us more than anyone else on Earth possibly could. Make a visit to church and say, “Jesus, I love you.” With so many people forgetting about Jesus, I’m sure that would please Him!
 
My post just reminded me that I had been thinking about going to Mass tomorrow but now since I remembered it’s Valentine’s Day, I think I will follow my own advice and definitely go and tell Jesus, “I love you.”
 
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