Is Love Sacrifice?

Why did I never like Valentine’s Day? Is it because the visuals are an eyesore? The blasting hearts everywhere? The air sick with the saccharine fog of chocolates and candy? 

Or was I trying to be “cool” like the boys? 

While I love love, and romance, and boys, and passion, and stories that end with a happily ever after, we forget the real reason why this day exists. 

Back in Rome, in a time so long ago that the year was in two digits, there lived a saint called Valentine. The dude in charge at the time, Claudius, believed that single men made better soldiers than those with families or wives. He banned all the singles from coupling up. 

So our hero Valentine sent out feelers and gathered all these couples so they can marry in secret. He knew it might get him beheaded. 

And it did. 

Bro literally died so y’all could get laid. On 14th February. 

He did a bunch of other admirable things too, such as free good-hearted prisoners on the sly. He also had some tenderness for one prisoners daughter and healed her from her blindness. 

So why is it that when we think of Valentine, we see flashing images of red and pink (uncomplimentary colours, btw)? Why are we expending energy on our mediocre husbands who don’t care to buy us a flower because “Valentine's Day is dumb”. Since when was the bar this low?

I grew up being told that loyalty is the highest virtue. But since, we've moved into a time where the world - and women - celebrate self-love, putting ourselves first, woman power, blah blah. I also moved from the east to the west. My brother carried a behemoth of a machine from Germany to Turkey to Karachi because his friend wanted espresso in the mornings.

"My friends in Canada would be super annoyed if I asked them to do that,"

"Maybe you have shit friends," he told me,

"Maybe. Or maybe I'd never ask them of a favour of that calibre." At least not without an offer of compensation of sorts. I also accept that when faced with a request, old-me would have had to be 90% uncomfortable in order to say refuse it. Many of my friends, it would have to be 10%. The new me wavers between a healthy 40%-60%, depending on how much the friend wants it.

So anyway. This V day, I will think of a possibly imaginary man who spent his secret hours playing cupid. I'm not one of them, but we could use people like that.

Love you all!