Blood was spilt for Valentine's Day to happen

Today, blood is still spilt by hapless romantics and beleaguered folks on overpriced meals, flowers and hotel rooms. Valentine’s Day has become a day for expressing love. And it will cost you.

Love is something we all feel but is very difficult to universally define. My college philosophy professor spent an entire semester encouraging debates on the definition of love. Whatever is waxed into poetry or song, on Valentine’s Day love is still hard to define but certainly felt …by your bleeding credit card.

In the effort to define what love is, the powers that be have created Valentine’s Day. Valentine’s Day has its history rooted in the massacre of St. Valentine. St. Valentine’s Day is commonly shortened to Valentine’s Day. The day is named after one or more early Christian martyrs named Valentine and was established by Pope Gelasius I in 500 AD. According to romantic legend, St. Valentine was persecuted as a Christian and interrogated by Roman Emperor Claudius II. It cast Valentine as a priest who refused to sign a law made by Roman Emperor Claudius II, allegedly ordering that young men remain single. The emperor believed that married men did not make for good soldiers. The priest Valentine, it is said, secretly performed marriage ceremonies for young men. When Claudius found out about this, he had Valentine arrested and thrown in jail. He was subsequently executed.

As you can see, this has nothing to do with hearts edged in lace and chocolates housed in golden boxes. But we kind of get the connection.

Pope Paul VI deleted it from the Roman calendar of saints in 1969, but its religious observance is still permitted.

Since the 19th century, handwritten valentines have given way to mass-produced greeting cards. 

It was bloody back then, and it is bloody now. So while players are chasing and breaking hearts, couples celebrate their union, and singles seek out other singles, we should appreciate the fact that half the world’s industries in some way or another try to cater to your expression of how to love or be loved.

In the end, it’s all about sealing the deal.

Most people see business as a numbers-driven game. Perhaps armies of newly minted MBAs headed for Wall Street demonized business during the era when greed was good. People forget that most businesses exist for one sole reason: to fulfill a human and likely an emotional desire. Most people are not driven by numbers but rather by emotions and emotional impulses. The advertising industry has long been successful in reaching out and tugging at these nerves. The ad geniuses know how humans are hardwired and know how to trigger a specific emotional response from the audience.

Here’s some trivia for the Valentine’s readers out there based on my research on the Net. Please note this trivia is based on the US market (from Corsinet.com):

• 15 percent of US women send themselves flowers on Valentine’s Day. That is one out of six!

• 73 percent of people who buy flowers are men, and 27percent are women.

• About one billion Valentine’s Day cards are purchased every year. This is the second biggest card-sending occasion (Christmas being the first).

• Hallmark has over 1,330 card designs for Valentine’s Day.

• Teachers receive the most Valentine’s Day cards, followed by children, mothers, wives, then sweethearts. Children aged between six and 10 will exchange more than 650 million Valentine’s cards with teachers, classmates, and family members.

• The “I Love You” virus (invented by an AMA IT student in the Philippines) was detected in Hong Kong on May 1, 2000. The virus quickly affected millions of computers hooked up to the Internet.

• Valentine’s Day is big business. Consumers will spend an average of $77.43 on Valentine’s Day gifts. On a consumer base of close to 200 million people in the US, this is a $15-billion sales event on a single day.

• Chocolates’ top-selling day is Valentine’s Day. Chocolate manufacturers use 40 percent of the world’s almonds, and 20 percent of the world’s peanuts.