Valentine’s Day: Views From Both Sides of the Heart

Paul WinterbothamStaff Writer
I do not like Valentine’s Day.

There, I said it.

I was the kid back in third grade for whom no one had a card to put in those pathetic mailboxes. Everyone told me that there weren’t enough cards in the set, but I don’t think cards always came in sets of 23.

These frustrations must be familiar to so many, namely men. We as a collective unit, have come to the conclusion that Valentine’s Day is a day in which the female race tries to make the poor, helpless males do their bidding.

The holiday itself is corrupt from the start. Valentine’s Day is suppose to be all about love, but once again, this goes against what men believe. Real men don’t show silly emotions like love.

We also do not need any more color-themed holidays, unless it concerns football decorations. The color red by itself is acceptable because blood is red, by pink? No men wear pink, and if they do, they are not real men. No excuses.

The absolute worst part of Valentine’s Day is the candy.

Unlike Halloween where familiar candy is passed out and eaten, Valentine’s Day has candy hearts. The general public is unaware that these same pieces of candy are sold year-round. But once they’re shaped like hearts, they suddenly outsell Snickers just because of their shape.

Has the flavor or texture of the candy been changed for the special occasion? No, the public is just dumb enough to fall for this marketing scam. Luckily this hasn’t led to everything being sold shaped as hearts, but it would not be a surprise if this happened in the near future.

On the topic of buying heart shaped objects, men have the added pressure to buy gifts. We have to shop around and buy something nice, spending valuable time and money on something that is never the right size, while women sit around and wait for their gifts. It’s Christmas morning for them, but the miserable last-second-trip-to-the-mall for us.

It is doubtful that Valentine’s Day will ever be taken off the calendar, so there needs to be a great compromise to balance out the gender holidays.

But that’s the thing — there is no true male holiday like there is for females. Women will always have the upper hand unless Steak Day is created, which would be magical.

Men, when celebrating this upcoming Valentine’s Day, I urge you not to enjoy it. Remember that it is simply those without a Y-chromosome forcing their agenda upon us, and whatever happens, do not fall for it.

Women, try to be nice this time around; we did nothing to deserve this terrible treatment.

Kate KennanStaff Writer
For Valentine’s Day, every girl dreams of rose petals thrown at her feet and sweet love notes and serenades dedicated just to her. But in reality, all we get are crappy Hallmark cards attempting to be cute and a box of half-eaten store chocolate. Yet we still don’t complain … well not as much as we should.

But despite these shortcomings, February 14 is the best day of the entire year for us.

Valentine’s Day is the only day of the year when we are allowed to expect things to happen. We expect for our long-lost love to gush his true feelings about us, and I think we all secretly hope for the perfect Seth-Summer kissing booth moment to happen on Valentine’s Day (you girls know what I’m talking about). We want a dozen roses with little notes on each, or memories of our special inside joke that shows us you care.

Girls have been known to be demanding (we can be at times a little too overbearing), and we have a reputation for having high expectations of Valentine’s Day. But this is only one day, on all the other 364 days, you guys have too high expectations of us.

We are constantly being skipped over because it’s always boys’ night. You say you need your male bonding time because the football team just won the big game, or you can’t come out tonight because you have to beat your stupid score of Halo or whatever it is you guys play.

But really, all you do is eat, wrestle each other and scratch yourselves, occasionally yelling loudly whenever some guy hits another guy on TV.

We love Valentine’s Day because this is the one day of the year where we come first.

To boys it may sound selfish and quite annoying, and I know at times we can be, but we just want to be remembered and appreciated. Isn’t that what we all want? When you score a touchdown or get a monster kill, don’t you want to be appreciated for what you did?

When it comes down to it, we don’t care what you do for us, just that you do something for us. We want to feel like you want us here, rather than just wanting some arm candy you can show off.

And in all honestly, we don’t mind crookedly-cut homemade cards, slightly burnt cookies and hastily plucked flowers. We don’t want it to be extravagant; we want it to be heartfelt. We want you to mean it.

So to all the guys out there, just remember it’s Valentine’s Day. Don’t get mad, don’t get exasperated. Just be a little considerate. That’s all we ask.