Who else reading this is single? The local Walmart has been selling roses and chocolates since December; TikTok feeds are full of couples showing their Valentines date ideas; the Deborah F. Stanley Arena is holding a “Sweethearts Open Skate.” Last year the Great Lake Review held a Valentine’s Day open mic at the bookstore in town: some people sang sad songs about love, one guy cried while reading song lyrics and one talented writer shared a poem about their ex-boyfriend. People were sad, on Valentine’s Day. 

Many people hate Christmas and those same people should hate Valentine’s Day. The most expensed victims are the couples who companies exploit to sell chocolates, flowers, teddy bears and Hallmark greeting cards with sappy meaningless messages compiled with a gift card to see “80 for Brady.” Couples put financial stress into legitimizing their romances on one arbitrary day to serve the bank accounts of wealthy capitalists. They expect the same from anniversaries. Some couples strategize and marry on Valentine’s Day, reducing their obligations by half. 

Valentine’s Day has a special sort of grossness that surpasses the commercial manipulation of Christmas, Halloween and the propaganda fest that is the Fourth of July. Valentine’s Day is not only the commercialization of romance, but it is a reminder of how much capitalism profits from culturally centering romance in general over human friendship. 

There is a pressure for people coming of age to find a romantic partner to marry as a hurdle to leap over. Capitalists profit over this anxiety by cultivating these insecurities into a product, whether it be makeup, fitness gear, or any of those oxymoronic self-help books. 

Unsurprisingly, this pressure is also overwhelmingly heteronormative. This is the same pressure that manifests as middle aged moms calling their five-year-old son a “lady’s man” for doing as little as looking in the direction of a girl. Sure, it is a joke, but it is a joke that reflects an

attitude of straight romance being inevitable and importantly, instructed. It also typically assumes the gender binary, with men having the responsibility to be the consumer for the Valentine’s Day product. 

Romance and friendship have this distinction that is not easy to articulate. When people describe what it is like to be in love, they typically decorate language that is equivalent to human connection and bonding. That is, really good friends. Valentine’s Day tries to legitimize this fuzzy line by giving romantic relationships a financial dedication. There’s a reason why “Friendship Day” never really caught on. This opinion is not pining about the costs of Valentine’s Day. It is pining about how Valentine’s Day assumes a prioritization of romantic love over friendly companionship and this itself is the work of sentimentalism, commercialism and heteronormativity. 

If this sounds too “NYU”, one can summarize it as such: Valentine’s Day is loathsome. It is overinflated and projected everywhere and for the cynics of the world this is exhausting, more so than that of Christmas. Celebrate the holiday if you want, but do not suggest it to those who want nothing to do with its undertones. 

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