Valentine's Day: A Day of Love or Failed Expectations?

Valentine's Day has curiously turned into a day that is no longer about love, but rather a day where high expectations are set for your love life: are you in a relationship? Will your significant other give you flowers? Chocolates? Teddy bears? What have you done to properly display your relationship to the public?
This holiday really breaks down into two segments: "single awareness day" and "lovey-dovey day."

Section One: Single People
Although every other day, single people walk around living their daily lives, today is the day where people suddenly realize their apparent loneliness from not having a special companion. Because the idea of couples in love are forced in front of their faces, single people wallow in despair and resign themselves to the fact that "at least I have my _____" (whether the blank is filled with friends, food, or video games.) They have been labeled  inferior today, so they join together in "forever alone" forces and scorn those who are in love. How disgusting, to feed into this commercialized holiday, they say. Now, it is important to note that not all single people are in fact secretly eating away at their desire to be part of these couples; some are in fact, vehemently opposed to this holiday. To each his own, and so we move on.

Section Two: Couples
If two people are deemed "lucky" enough to be in a couple, this might be the very day to show it off, as today is the one day where it is okay to show off how in love with each other they are without being shunned. Of course, high expectations are set in place for this special day: it no longer becomes a question of how much they love each other, but how much they are willing to show it. The pressure is on to be the best girlfriend or boyfriend - everything has to be perfect, from the flowers to the restaurant. To fail is to fail in front of everyone - and who wants to be negatively judged?

So who really benefits from Valentine's Day? The answer is easy: Hallmark and all of those corporations out to eat your money because you desperately needed to appease yourself or your significant other.

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone <3