Valentine’s Day is a heck of a lot of pressure. In fact, it wasn’t even all fun and games when it started with nudity and a dog sacrifice. Both peer pressure and social expectations have always created trouble with a capital T on this holiday.
“It is what I would refer to as a Hallmark holiday and another method of extortion, a commercial representation of how you should treat people every day,” Will Schroeder, a UCC writing student, says.
Back to the dead dog, though. According to the National Geographic website, the earliest Valentine’s days were celebrated as fertility holidays in the middle of February in Rome. Men would strip down naked during the festival, called Lupercalia, sacrificing a dog and a goat.
Shakespeare brought romance into the renamed Valentine’s Day in later years.
Today in America, with all the Valentine’s Day symbols and traditions, even the D in day is capitalized to represent the holiday’s significance. So how are UCC students coping with the holiday pressure?
Another UCC writing student, Bennett Killgore feels that the holiday is too commercial. “Valentine’s Day has made people believe that love means buying things for people.”
The problem with the holiday can be significantly more serious. Two of the first research studies about the “Holiday blues” document a higher correlation of parasuicide and hospital stays during Valentine’s Day. However, later studies did not find a parasuicide correlation. They did find something else though. Many guys would rather break up than deal with the stress of finding a perfect gift.
Lange, Jerabek and Dagnall in their article published in the Journal of Scientific exploration cite Lund’s work: “38 (percent) of men contemplate terminating a relationship rather than face the task of choosing a ‘really good’ gift for their partners.”
In short, keep it simple. Don’t let pressure disrupt this time of year. Have fun with it.
Contact Hadley-Rayn Harris at:
UCCMainstream@yahoo.com