Evil Valentine’s Day. It’s about this time that I start complaining about how I’ll be alone forever, or that this is such an over-blown holiday. Or I point out one of the few bright spots.

But just what is so great about this day? What’s with all the candy, the cards, and the sexy lingerie? Mostly I’m focusing on the candy, because that part I don’t mind so much. But what’s the deal?

It is amazing that we have co-opted so many holidays from their original meanings so that we can get I day off, or that we can increase sales for the quarter. It’s odd then, that what started off as a date to remember a martyr of the early Church has turned into a reason to get down wit’cho bad sef.

I made that last part up.

St. Valentine is a martyr from around 300 AD, who was probably killed for whatever reason on February 14. There are tons of stories as to why he was killed, and that there may have been more than one (one a priest of Rome, another a bishop of Ternia). This is where the story takes a strange twist.

It was “common knowledge” that birds found their mates in the middle of February. After a while, people started associating the time of the year with birds mating. So, birds found their mates on Valentine’s Day. But there was no reason that the birds couldn’t have found their mate on another day.

If the Tsumani in Southeast Asia had come come on July the 4th, Americans would’ve surely called it the Independence Day Tsunami. That was the case with the birds. They just hooked up, as was the custom of the day, on that particular day. There was nothing particularly special about it.

Later, as tradition turned into pastime, young men started to write letters home during the Crusades, it was thought that the Spring was when boys minds turned to fancy. It was more because wars are fought in the Spring when crops don’t need harvesting, but don’t let facts get in the way of a good story. Again, coincidence had a part to play.

Since we tend to carry on traditions long after they loose their original meaning, the men upon returning from wars were met with a bloc of interested parties that were looking for the same kind of attention they were getting whilst the working end was away. In laymen’s terms, the ladies wanted the fellas to keep working for it. This, however, was a surprise to the fellas, who what had did fought in a frick’n war for them. Thus the great tradition of sleeping on the couch was started.

Okay, so most of that last paragraph I made up. But not the part about the men having to keep up the courting. No, after the Crusades the menfolk had it worse. Now the women expected to be wooed and written to, and made a big deal out of…and the men had no choice but to give in to their devilish schemes.

That is, I mean, until the men-folk got wise to their ways, and calmed down with all that writing and stuff. However, it wasn’t like the women were going down without a fight. They managed to con us male-types into making the bird hook-up day into a full-blown holiday. Not a huge one, at first, but one in which the males could still make the women feel special.

To make those women feel special, the age-old art of bribes was employed, and worked itself into something that makes up our modern celebration. During the second World War, there was intense rationing, and something odd started to take place. Women were starting to select gift for this sort-of holiday that included two things that were difficult to get: chocolates and nylons.

Because chocolate and sugar were in short supply, children who loved the God-given delight of chocolate candies were left without. Sugar was too great a staple to waste on candy. Nylon was a fabric that went into the war machine to make parachutes and tents, not leggings. As part of the Valentine’s Day phenomena, women started asking for these two items over all others for their bribes tokens of affection.

Until studies in the late 90s, we had no idea why those two particular items were so successful in getting-um-the men, er, where they wanted to go. It’s a family show, people. Turns out, that chocolate is a natural aphrodisiac. And yummy. It took scientists to figure this out.

The nylon stockings were something else entirely. No, the stockings were not aphrodisiacs in themselves, but the fellas tended to like them. In fact, when the ladies found out just how much they could make us dumb men-folk do just to get to those stockings, they became an instant hit. Something that was true in cave man days holds true to modern man; a well-placed corset can lead men to war.

Sure, you can point to the psychological ramifications of having good self-esteem through a healthy look has, but that’s not the point. We are led to believe that a woman who feels like she is good-looking and makes the men pay attention is natural and healthy-and it is. And it’s alright to have a day where we celebrate the love that two (or more-thanks porn) people share.

What my point has been, and will continue to be till they start putting dirt on my coffin, is that I don’t need Hallmark telling me what I should be doing. I’m sure that there are a lot of people getting down wit’those afore-mentioned bad selves, I just won’t be one of them. I will be burning candles, playing my emo tunes, and crying about how if I’d just gone to Forest Hill instead of Princeton I coulda got down wit’ Carmen Electra (before she was all skankified by Prince) and I coulda had her all to myself.

Yeah, Merry Frick’n Valentine’s Day.

status: published
lastmod: '2006-11-01T02:57:36.000Z'
author: John Stansbury
cms: wordpress
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  similarterms: started women part birds valentine point found people make turned reason made fellas chocolate stockings special holiday candy great story