14 Miserable Facts About Valentine's Day
It's the beginning of February, and we all know what that means - Valentine's Day is coming up. It's a tough holiday because, unlike more family-centric holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving, Valentine's Day is really all about couples. Sure, Leslie Knope popularized Galentine's Day, and many families still exchange small tokens, but let's get real - Valentine's Day is all about romantic love. At least, that's what many people out there would like to make you think.
In reality, it isn't all sunshine and overpriced roses. There's a lot of dirt behind the holiday, and a lot of cringe-worthy stats that prove just how much it's about selling chocolates and greeting cards rather than about showing the person you love how much you appreciate them. It may seem bitter to say that it's just a Hallmark holiday, but, well - it kind of is. It has a confusing, unclear history, and most of the major traditions involve buying things for your beloved.
If you dig out your favourite sweater with the heart pattern a week before the big day and buy your cards and gifts well in advance, well, this might not be the list for you. However, if you're a Valentine's Day Grinch, you'll love these 14 miserable facts about the holiday.
14 In Victorian times, you weren't even supposed to sign the card
The Victorians were big on decorum and a bit more reserved than we are today, so you might initially think that their hesitation to sign a Valentine's Day card was because they wanted to be a bit more subtle about their affections - but that's not quite the case. It turns out, back in the day, it was considered bad luck to sign a Valentine's Day card. Presumably, the object of your affection would just have to figure out who his or her secret admirer was - adding a name would just make it too easy, right? Luckily, nowadays, there's no such superstition, and if you really want to make a grand romantic gesture on Valentine's Day and confess your feelings to your crush, you can sign your name to make sure they know it's from you. That could either be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on the result.
13 Valentine's jewellery leads to 34 million tons of waste
Most guys will get their partner flowers and/or chocolates for Valentine's Day - those are relatively affordable options, although perhaps not as much if you wait until the last minute on the flowers once the prices have skyrocketed. However, for many guys, the big gesture includes a piece of sparkly new jewellery - and that kind of consumption doesn't come without consequences. It turns out that in a mere two week period leading up to Valentine's Day - the first two weeks of February, when guys are hitting the mall in a desperate search for gifts - American sales alone of gold jewellery produce 34 million tons of waste. We won't go into all the specifics, but that's an absolutely insane stat - perhaps guys need to start shopping a bit greener for the holiday. After all, what saves love like a gift that helps save the planet, even if it's not made out of 24 karat gold?
12 10% of young adults get bummed out about the holiday
Let's face it - if you're not in a relationship during Valentine's Day, sometimes, it can be a little bit of a bummer seeing all those happy couples. However, it may help to know that it's not just you feeling that way - in a recent poll that was conducted where young adults were surveyed about their feelings on Valentine's Day, one in ten survey participants said they felt lonely, insecure, depressed or unwanted on Valentine's Day. And, of course, that's just the ones who felt brave enough to admit it - there may very well have been a higher percentage who weren't comfortable being honest with the survey organizers. Either way, that works out to at least 10% of young adults feeling down in the dumps about the romantic holiday - that's not an insignificant number! So, next time you think about sharing your post about your adorable relationship on social media, perhaps take a moment to think about those 10%
11 Conversation hearts have a shelf life of five years
Everyone knows what conversation hearts are - those chalky little tablets with phrases emblazoned on them like “be mine,” “kiss me,” “luv u,” etc. Sure, most people would much rather have a box of artisanal truffles than the inexpensive conversation hearts, but chances are, you'll encounter a few this Valentine's day - they just pop up everywhere during the holiday. Well, before you reach your hand into the candy bowl at the office and take out a few conversation hearts, consider this - they apparently have a shelf life of about five years. That's right - not five weeks, not five months, but five entire years. There aren't many foods that have comparable shelf lives, even ones packed with preservations, so we don't even want to know what's in those chalky, pastel hearts, but it can't be good for you. Next time you chow down on a heart that says “with you 4ever,” stop to think that, well… it just might be.
10 It has a few juicy origin stories
Okay, okay, let us explain. Valentine's Day has a few different origin stories, one of them being that it derives from a Roman festival called Lupercalia that took place on February 15 and involved a fair bit of spanking and nudity. One of the more romantic stories, though, involves St. Valentine. You see, the Roman emperor at the time, Claudius II, was trying to make sure he had the strongest possible army, so he forbid his soldiers from marrying - you know, don't want those wives distracting them! St. Valentine, a hopeless romantic, took issue with the ban and decided to perform secret marriages for all those soldiers and their loves. As a result, he was executed - on February 14. So, next time you're worried about your crush not returning your feelings, just give St. Valentine's fate a thought - it'll really put things in perspective because no response could be as bad as execution.
9 Men open their wallets in a major way
There's no secret about it - Valentine's Day is very much marketed as a holiday where women should be the recipients of gifts and tokens of affection. Sure, many couples end up buying things for one another, but it's often the women who get the big bouquets of flowers and stuffed animals and gourmet treats. It turns out the stats back that attitude up - on average, men spend about double what women spend on Valentine's Day, trying to buy their lady love nice gifts and take her on a romantic date. Of course, it also doesn't help that so many men wait until the last minute, or find themselves without a clue what to get their partner - they often end up suckered into buying overpriced flowers or items the store wants to sell en masse (we're looking at you, heart-shaped pendants). Men are more than happy to pay a little extra if it means they have something nice to present to their partner.
8 It's all about getting lucky
There are specific companies that amp up the advertising budget when Valentine's Day rolls around - namely, ones that sell jewelry, chocolate, flowers, and anything that falls into the typical 'romantic' gifts category. That's because they know that anything packaged in a specific way will get snatched up by eager shoppers. However, there's one item that many people buy on Valentine's Day that doesn't quite fall into the same category - condoms. Durex reports that, in the period around Valentine's Day, sales are approximately 20 to 30% higher than normal. Perhaps that's guys hoping that their romantic gift will yield some loving, perhaps it's women deciding to take control of their destiny and find a man (but be safe about it), whatever it is, people are definitely proving that the holiday isn't just about romance - it's about getting lucky, whether that's with your partner or with another sad single you meet at the bar.
7 Hallmark literally has strategies and analytics
Everyone knows that Valentine's Day is one of the biggest holidays for card giving, but you may not know just how seriously Hallmark takes it. If you assumed they just churned out a few new cutesy cards each year, knowing that people would buy them regardless, well - you're way off. It turns out, Hallmark has an 80 person research staff whose duty it is to analyze the sales pattern of previous Valentine's cards. They combine that with focus groups, in-store observations of how customers react to the various cards, and over 100,000 annual customer interviews, and you've got a very, very thoroughly researched batch of about 2,000 cards. So, next time you're browsing the aisles at Hallmark looking for the perfect card, stop to consider that hundreds of people and hundreds and hundreds of hours of work went into crafting those cards. They're not about to just put out random cards - they're going to try to get as much profit as possible!
6 It's not exactly a green holiday
Flowers are one of the biggest Valentine's Day purchases - partners buy them for one another, children buy them for their parents, friends buy them for friends, etc. After all, who doesn't want a gorgeous bouquet of flowers to display? However, if you stop to think about it, in many climates, flowers just aren't in bloom in February when Valentine's Day is. Unless you're somewhere that's warm year round, chances are Valentine's Day includes frosty temperatures outside not exactly conducive to flowers blooming. The solution to the problem is simple - import them from spots where they are growing. The only issue is, transporting batches and batches of red roses from far away isn't exactly good for the environment. For example, in the United States, the majority of roses sold for Valentine's Day were imported all the way from South America. The environment probably isn't the biggest fan of all those bouquets, considering the impact they have!
5 It's all about the profits
There are people who wax poetic about the romance of Valentine's Day, and the amazing feeling of showing your partner how special they are to you. That's certainly a lovely sentiment, but at the end of the day, Valentine's Day is about one thing to many people - money. It may only last for a single day, unlike Christmas season, which seems to stretch out for weeks and weeks of potential consumerism, but Valentine's Day is definitely a big business. Market research firm IBIS World has done some research over the years, and sales for the romantic holiday frequently total over $15 billion - and they continue to rise. As much as hopeless romantics say the holiday is about romantic gestures rather than material goods, the numbers would beg to differ - people are spending crazy cash on the holiday, because nothing says “I love you” like a giant gift, right? Those billions of dollars didn't come out of nowhere.
4 You can celebrate Singles Awareness Day
Okay, this one isn't exactly about Valentine's Day in particular, but it's a closely linked holiday. As everyone knows, Valentine's Day takes place on February 14; what many people may not know, however, is that the day immediately following Valentine's Day is known as Singles Awareness Day - or SAD, to be short (we know - quite the unfortunate acronym!). If you hadn't quite found the courage to celebrate Valentine's Day solo, then perhaps you can just postpone the festivities and hit the town on Singles Awareness Day. Or, perhaps you'll be too saddened by SAD and just veg out on your couch until it all passes - hey, we're not judging. The fact that the SAD celebration comes up immediately after Valentine's Day, when many couples are still basking in their romantic day, is a little bit of a bummer - but at least you get a discount on the Valentine's candy, right?
3 The 'X' in XOXO arose because people were illiterate
You know those adorable “xoxo” symbols that adorn everything from candy hearts to novelty socks on Valentine's Day? Well, the origin behind those isn't as adorable as you might think. You see, back in medieval times, not everyone was able to write - they had other things to do, so a lot of them just never learned. That posed a bit of a problem when it came to signing official documents, so a solution was created - people would sign their names with an 'X' rather than a full signature, and then kiss the 'signature' - hence the connection between kisses and that particular letter. So, next time you want to add a few rows of x's and o's to your Valentine's card, perhaps stop to think that way back in the day, people really just did that because they couldn't write - your name and a cute message will suffice since you can.
2 Doctors used to prescribe chocolate as a broken heart remedy
We're 100% serious with this one. Nowadays, many people (more commonly women, but that doesn't mean guys can't chow down on the sweet stuff) turn to chocolate when they're dealing with a broken heart. It's indulgent, it's decadent, and it gives you that sugar rush that boosts your mood almost instantly. I mean, who doesn't love chocolate? Well, it turns out that it's not just 21st century palates that are self-medicating their sadness with chocolate - back in the 1800s, many doctors would actually suggest that their patients eat chocolate in order to deal with their broken hearts. The reasoning was that consuming chocolate would help to soothe their pain, and help to quiet their longing for their lost love. The vast majority of medical advice from that period has since been discredited, now that we have way more knowledge and technology, but we've got to admit, the chocolate thing kind of holds up.
1 The menu during medieval Valentine's celebrations was a little different
When it comes to Valentine's Day plans, many people's involve some type of a romantic meal, whether you're going out to a fancy restaurant or just cooking a special meal together at home. You may be serving up aphrodisiacs like oysters, indulgent seafood like lobster, or a decadent dessert. Food is a big part of Valentine's Day festivities - and it has been for awhile, although not quite in the same way. During Valentine's Day in medieval times, women would eat a lot of very bizarre foods in order to prompt vivid dreams. That's because the dreams were supposed to be of their future husband - they desperately tried to provoke those dreams because they wanted to know what their romantic future looked like. Nowadays, having super vivid dreams after consuming strange foods would just make us think we had food poisoning, but hey - maybe they were just way more romantic in medieval times.
