People are doing a LOT around Valentine's Day

I mean a lot.

I've been catching up on my blogs around the world and everybody, whether they're in a relationship or not, seems to have been caught up in the significance of Valentine's Day. Everybody was either glowing about how special it was, or seething over how much they hated it, or being very careful to respond to it in very academic, thoughtful terms. But everybody was feeling that it was Valentine's Day.

Are you SERIOUS?

Basically, you're telling me that folks get all worked up over an ancient Roman fertility festival and a few Catholic martyrs? Oh, and don't forget the popular "it's just a conspiracy of the greeting card companies to sell product" theory. Think that's hooey? Well greeting card companies have been mass producing Valentine's cards for more than 150 years now. Sounds like big business to me.

I guess i'm most surprised by my LGBT family, and the way we buy into these crazy notions. Trust me when i say there is nothing in the history of this "holiday" that was meant for us. Yet we go for it as if we were all maidens waiting to be touched by goatskin-clad priests blessing us with baby-making potential. (Lost? Check the earliest origins of mid-February festivals.)

Bottom line, this celebration of love is about as artificial as the celebration of Jesus' birth on December 25. Why we pin so much significance to it -- not to mention personal mental health and self-esteem -- is WAAAAAAAAAAY beyond me. I've been single and i've been coupled and i've never felt anything but put out by Valentine's Day.

Sheesh!!!


ANNOUNCER: "You may now return to your regularly scheduled programming of The Love Hater." (And no, i ain't he.)