Valentine's Day - What's it all about?

 

Every year, the 14th day of February sees all of us, no matter what age or sex, scurrying about organising surprises, no matter how big or small and presenting our loved ones with flowers, chocolates and whatever other treat or gift we can think of to show our love.

Every table in every good restaurant is usually taken well in advance and God help the poor boyfriend, husband or fiancée who didn’t get a chance to shop!

While we give cards and gifts and hope we have someone care enough about us to leave a little surprise the history of St Valentine's day is actually very sweet and deserves some recognition.

Valentine's day, some say, originates from a bishop named Valentine, who was stationed in the Roman Empire. At that time the Emperor was Claudius II, who took it upon himself to decide that men who were not yet married actually made better soldiers than did the ones with wives and families.

It was this belief that brought about his decision to make it a rule of law that young men could not marry. Such an outrageous decision caused distress for so many young men and their sweethearts that round 270 A.D., it was bishop Valentine who took great pity on these poor and lonely soldiers who were pining for their loves and he began performing secret marriages against the ruling of the Emperor.

Once the secret marriages were found out Claudius II was enraged and jailed Valentine. While imprisoned Claudius II began his attempts to convert Valentine insisting that he worship only the Roman Gods, but Valentine refused and Instead, he began his own campaign to convert Claudius to Christianity.

Valentine was sentenced to be executed on February 24, 270.

There is also another version of the history of Valentine’s Day which tells a more romantic side to the story (which we all love of course!)

While imprisoned, Valentine fell in love with his jailer’s daughter. Just before his death, he sent his beloved a note telling her of his love and at the end the signature read “from your Valentine.” With the tale of deceit, romance and death, those who knew the story began to talk of the demise of Valentine and over time his fame was far reaching.

Bishop Valentine, having not only sacrificed his own life to help the young couples in love, also overcame the reality of his predicament to fall in love with his executioners daughter, became what a “Patron Saint” of love.  As time passed his legend lived on and many considered him the patron or spiritual overseer of an annual festival held on the 14th of February, in which young couples would give cards of love and affection to those they were not only already in love with, but to those they wished to date.

There are even Valentine cards in museums worldwide that date back to 1415.

We will leave you on this day of celebrating the uniqueness and beauty of love with this:

Sonnet 116 by William Shakespeare

Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments.

Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

0, no! it is an ever-fixed mark, that looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.

Love’s not time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle’s compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, but bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

 

 Happy Valentine's Day!

 

Is ticking all the boxes ruining your chances of finding true love?

We live in a truly amazing time. A time of technology and instant access to, well, everything. If we want it, we can usually get it there and then and if we can’t we can probably at least order it online there and then! But there is one thing that continues to elude some in the fast-paced rat race we call life and that is of course ….Love.

In days long past it might have been as simple as glancing across a room and locking eyes with that one person who locked eyes back while for others, like a very great love story, it involved some kind of struggle or adversity, but in the end love triumphed. BUT for others, the all elusive ‘love’ has become stressful, fraught with anxiety, stress, worry and confusion.

 

We may live in an age where we can see everyone’s profile, what they look like and, irritatingly, what they had for breakfast, but with the rising number of divorces, growing depression and loneliness and general feelings of detachment that many singles are feeling when it comes to finding love are we really better off?

 

When you speak to your grandparents and in some cases even your parents about how they met, they speak of local dances, or double dating and chaperoned trips to the movies. People seemed to fall in love more often and easier without the complication of his/her ugly profile pic or finding some differing political view after stalking their Facebook profile. Somehow, it seems, that society now finds it acceptable for each person to have a ‘list’ and hard copy or mental page of tick boxes that a potential lover must at least be able to fill the majority of the page.

 

Someone I know, who shall remain nameless (for fear she will kill me), has one such list. It’s extensive, complicated and to be honest utterly unrealistic. Yet she stands by said list with vigour and should a potential date not tick one of the major items then he is out the door without a second thought. Strange? Apparently not, because it seems that more and more are adopting just such an approach.

 

In Shanghai, there are actually organised ‘Expo’s’ that offer singles seeking an ‘appropriate’ partner the opportunity to not only come along, but bring their entire family in order to find Mr or Mrs Right. It’s called the Annual Love and Marriage Expo, but there seems to be very little love in the atmosphere at these events that feel more like and business or career event.

 

According to CNN these gatherings, which attract a staggering amount of singles – in the thousands, are so big that they have to be held in a shopping complex! With as many parents roaming around looking for ‘suitable’ candidates for their children as there are singles themselves, many flock to the many billboards that display not only pictures, but essential information such as age, height, education and yes, you guessed, that most important piece, annual income. 

 

With speed dating on offer for many who have never even had a date before, love, romance and the old-fashioned, ‘getting to know each other' are not only forgotten, but seem impossible.

 

While we might laugh or scoff at how absurd it sounds, we need to ask ourselves, is this merely a more extreme version of ticking all the boxes? Is this what many singles with long lists of criteria are doing anyway? Perhaps it is a little more subtly or justified as trying to weed out Mr or Mrs Wrong, but are we in fact treating love and chemistry as something of a job and person specification? Could we be cheating ourselves out of finding the absolute most perfect person for us simply because a box or two has not been ticked?

 

Food for thought!