Is Valentine’s Day Romantic or Just an Obligatory Hallmark Holiday?

Julie: 00:00:00

My birthday is March 8th.

Julie: 00:00:01

International women's day.

Julie: 00:00:03

It's an appropriate birthday for me.

Julie: 00:00:05

Don't you think?

Julie: 00:00:07

Well, what you might not know is that my original due date, the day that I was

Julie: 00:00:11

supposed to be born on was February 14th.

Julie: 00:00:14

Oh, it was like, even in utero, I was like, no fucking way.

Julie: 00:00:18

Valentine's day.

Julie: 00:00:19

That shit ain't happening.

Julie: 00:00:21

Welcome to episode 79 of this shit works.

Julie: 00:00:24

I'm your host, Julie Brown.

Julie: 00:00:25

And today I am discussing why I personally boycott Valentine's day.

Julie: 00:00:30

Because I think it's ups.

Julie: 00:00:32

This episode is sponsored by Nickerson, a full service branding,

Julie: 00:00:36

marketing PR and communications agency with team members in Boston,

Julie: 00:00:40

bus Angeles, Miami and New York city.

Julie: 00:00:43

Visit them at Nickerson C O S.

Julie: 00:00:47

Dot com Now.

Julie: 00:01:11

Before you get all huffy puffy about why.

Julie: 00:01:13

I don't celebrate or even like, Valentine's day.

Julie: 00:01:16

Do you actually know anything about Saint Valentine for which the day is named?

Julie: 00:01:23

According to history.com.

Julie: 00:01:24

The Saint we celebrate on Valentine's day is known officially

Julie: 00:01:29

as Saint Valentine of Rome.

Julie: 00:01:32

In order to differentiate him from the dozen or so other Valentines that made

Julie: 00:01:37

it on the list you see apparently Valin tennis was a very popular moniker between

Julie: 00:01:43

the second and eighth centuries, a de.

Julie: 00:01:47

The most popular and officially recognized story by the Roman Catholic church is

Julie: 00:01:51

that Saint Valentine is known to be a real person who died around 80 to 70.

Julie: 00:01:57

However, His true identity was questioned as early as 84, 96 and

Julie: 00:02:03

one account from the 14 hundreds.

Julie: 00:02:05

Describes Valentine as a temple priest who was beheaded near Rome by the emperor.

Julie: 00:02:11

Claudius the second for helping Christian couples wed.

Julie: 00:02:15

Even though this has never been proven in quick, quite

Julie: 00:02:17

literally be a work of fiction.

Julie: 00:02:19

This story, this particular story.

Julie: 00:02:22

Is why he has been named the patron Saint of love.

Julie: 00:02:26

What the old hand-me-downs stories usually leave out of this tale is that St.

Julie: 00:02:30

Valentine is also the patron Saint of.

Julie: 00:02:34

Beekeeping.

Julie: 00:02:36

Fainting.

Julie: 00:02:37

And the plague.

Julie: 00:02:39

Love and beekeeping.

Julie: 00:02:40

Great.

Julie: 00:02:41

Fainting in the plague.

Julie: 00:02:43

Not so great.

Julie: 00:02:45

Now.

Julie: 00:02:46

If you know me, you know, I'm not a mushy.

Julie: 00:02:49

Emotional person, but that does not mean that I do not love, love.

Julie: 00:02:53

I do.

Julie: 00:02:54

And I love acts of love.

Julie: 00:02:56

But I don't like is artificial media and advertising induced pressures to make

Julie: 00:03:01

a big display of your love display of which is not even for the other person,

Julie: 00:03:06

is to fulfill some bullshit idea of what love is supposed to look like.

Julie: 00:03:11

That's not romantic.

Julie: 00:03:12

That's the opposite of romantic.

Julie: 00:03:15

Because of the hoopla that surrounds Valentine's day, it becomes easy to

Julie: 00:03:19

judge our partner's level of affection for us based on what kind of display

Julie: 00:03:24

he or she puts on for us on that one.

Julie: 00:03:27

Very.

Julie: 00:03:28

Over-hyped and commercialized day.

Julie: 00:03:32

I prefer to see romance in the small everyday acts of love

Julie: 00:03:35

that happened all year round.

Julie: 00:03:38

You want to know what I find romantic?

Julie: 00:03:40

When Chris cleans my car off for me before work, when it snows so that I don't

Julie: 00:03:43

have to get cold and wet before work.

Julie: 00:03:46

Or when he knows that I've been grocery shopping and here's my car in the driveway

Julie: 00:03:49

and comes out and grabs the groceries.

Julie: 00:03:51

So I don't have to carry them inside.

Julie: 00:03:53

Or when he builds res planter beds in the garden, so that the rabbits can't reach

Julie: 00:03:57

my vegetable plants, fucking rabbits.

Julie: 00:03:59

I will Elmer Fudd your fucking ass.

Julie: 00:04:04

Hm.

Julie: 00:04:04

Moving on Love is when you have a hard day.

Julie: 00:04:09

And all you need is someone listen to you without judgment.

Julie: 00:04:12

Or opinion.

Julie: 00:04:14

I mentioned in a previous episode that Chris and I met in January,

Julie: 00:04:18

our first date was February 2nd.

Julie: 00:04:20

We liked each other, obviously.

Julie: 00:04:22

So there was clearly going to be a second date.

Julie: 00:04:24

And that date was going to fall precariously close to Valentine's day.

Julie: 00:04:29

So I let Chris know that if he pulled any Valentine's day bullshit

Julie: 00:04:33

on our second date or on the actual Valentine's day itself, right after.

Julie: 00:04:37

That indeed.

Julie: 00:04:39

There will be no third date.

Julie: 00:04:41

He didn't know what to make of this.

Julie: 00:04:43

His response was, are you fucking with me?

Julie: 00:04:46

Is this some sort of test.

Julie: 00:04:48

No, I'm not fucking with you.

Julie: 00:04:49

I said, and maybe this is some sort of test to see if you'll actually

Julie: 00:04:52

listen to me, but I don't think so.

Julie: 00:04:54

I just don't want any of that Valentine's day malarkey.

Julie: 00:04:56

Is that okay?

Julie: 00:04:58

He was not only confused.

Julie: 00:04:59

He was petrified.

Julie: 00:05:00

Petrified that I wasn't being serious.

Julie: 00:05:03

And this was really some sort of stupid test about like what he was

Julie: 00:05:06

going to do when Valentine's day.

Julie: 00:05:09

I mean, he had only known me for less than two weeks at the time.

Julie: 00:05:13

He hadn't yet learned how matter of fact I am and how I very,

Julie: 00:05:17

very, really fuck with people.

Julie: 00:05:19

But what he did soon learn.

Julie: 00:05:21

Is that one of my favorite days of the year.

Julie: 00:05:24

Is February 15.

Julie: 00:05:26

When all the Valentine's day candy is 75% off.

Julie: 00:05:31

And if he wanted to go and get a huge ass haul of 75% off chocolate and candy.

Julie: 00:05:35

That.

Julie: 00:05:36

That is something I could get behind.

Julie: 00:05:40

Listen.

Julie: 00:05:40

I'm not judging you.

Julie: 00:05:41

If you like, and look forward to Valentine's day.

Julie: 00:05:44

I have friends who thoroughly enjoy celebrating it.

Julie: 00:05:47

You know who you are right now, listening to this episode.

Julie: 00:05:51

In your car.

Julie: 00:05:53

Studies show that there is some serious polarization around Valentine's day.

Julie: 00:05:56

Almost half of Americans describe Valentine's day as overrated,

Julie: 00:05:59

according to a 2017 survey still.

Julie: 00:06:03

Another 43% called it romantic.

Julie: 00:06:07

Life science.com explains three reasons why people like me and

Julie: 00:06:10

almost half of Americans don't particularly care for Valentine's day.

Julie: 00:06:15

They are.

Julie: 00:06:16

One, we are rebels.

Julie: 00:06:18

Yes.

Julie: 00:06:19

You heard that right?

Julie: 00:06:20

In marketing, there's a notion called resistance theory.

Julie: 00:06:23

Basically, if people feel like they're being asked to comply with

Julie: 00:06:26

the prescribed pre-packaged behavior.

Julie: 00:06:29

They're unlikely to do so.

Julie: 00:06:31

Too.

Julie: 00:06:32

You're not comfortable with relationships.

Julie: 00:06:35

Uh, 2014 study surveyed, coupled up individuals about how Valentine's

Julie: 00:06:40

day impacted their assessments of their own relationships.

Julie: 00:06:44

The researchers focused on a concept called attachment.

Julie: 00:06:47

Which is rooted in research on parent child interactions.

Julie: 00:06:51

Attachment avoidance turned out to be key for how people

Julie: 00:06:55

experience their relationship in context to Valentine's day.

Julie: 00:06:59

I don't know if I'm reading too much into this, but it's looking

Julie: 00:07:02

like I can blame my absentee bother from my Valentine's day avoidance.

Julie: 00:07:06

And three.

Julie: 00:07:08

You're being a little melodramatic right now.

Julie: 00:07:11

Uh, 2010 study of emotional anticipation ask participants to

Julie: 00:07:15

report how they were likely to feel about Valentine's day in mid January.

Julie: 00:07:20

On February 16th, the same participants were again asked about Valentine's

Julie: 00:07:24

day, this time reporting how they actually felt about the holiday.

Julie: 00:07:29

Across the board participants overestimated how intensely

Julie: 00:07:33

they'd feel about the holiday.

Julie: 00:07:35

Data's believed they feel more positive about Valentine's

Julie: 00:07:38

day than they actually did.

Julie: 00:07:40

Non daters thought they'd feel more negative.

Julie: 00:07:42

In fact, after the day passed, it turned out that both daters and singles.

Julie: 00:07:47

Feld about the same on Valentine's day.

Julie: 00:07:50

So.

Julie: 00:07:51

Like everything else.

Julie: 00:07:53

Valentine's day.

Julie: 00:07:55

Shall pass you choose to celebrate it.

Julie: 00:07:59

Or not celebrated.

Julie: 00:08:00

It's up to you.

Julie: 00:08:02

There is no right or wrong answer.

Julie: 00:08:05

For the cocktail, a little weak, I headed to the Google machine to look up.

Julie: 00:08:11

cocktails and the internet did not disappoint.

Julie: 00:08:15

There were a ton of them.

Julie: 00:08:17

I picked one because I liked the name and I had the ingredients on hand.

Julie: 00:08:22

It's called.

Julie: 00:08:24

Cupid's miss.

Julie: 00:08:25

Here's what you're going to need.

Julie: 00:08:27

Five ounces of sparkling wine.

Julie: 00:08:29

A half an ounce of sham board.

Julie: 00:08:31

And half an ounce of grand Marnay.

Julie: 00:08:33

What you're going to do is you're going to take a champagne flute, and

Julie: 00:08:36

you're just going to combine all of the ingredients into the champagne

Julie: 00:08:38

flute, and you're going to garnish it with blackberries and an orange peel.

Julie: 00:08:43

All right friends, that's it for this week.

Julie: 00:08:46

Let me know what side of the debate you stand on.

Julie: 00:08:48

Are you with the 50% of Americans that do not like Valentine's day?

Julie: 00:08:52

Where are you with the 43%?

Julie: 00:08:53

That's still think it's romantic.

Julie: 00:08:56

If you like what you heard today, please leave a review

Julie: 00:08:58

and subscribe to the podcast.

Julie: 00:09:00

Also, please remember to share the podcast with your friends to

Julie: 00:09:03

help it reach a larger audience.

Julie: 00:09:05

Until next week.