13 Reasons WHY VALENTINES DAY IS A BIG CURSE

1. In the weeks leading up to Valentine’s Day, gold jewelry sales generate 34 million tons of mine waste.

2. Red roses emit about 9,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide on this very special day.

3. Oh yeah, and these mass quantities of red roses are shipped from South Africa, which wastes fossil fuel.

Roses are generally grown in warmer climates, so each year, we fly millions of roses across the ocean, using fossil fuel for refrigeration tanks (not to mention refrigerant gasses are also harmful to the environment).

4. Studies sadly continue to suggest that Valentine’s Day is “nationally, the time with the highest rate of suicide.”

Diane Brice, the director of Suicide Prevention Service of the Central Coast, says the “expectation” to be in love, or feel better, often intensifies depressive thoughts.

5. Other polls find many young adults admit to having negative and depressive feelings on Feb. 14.

Apparently, 1 in 10 adults feel lonely, insecure, depressed, or unwanted on Valentine’s Day, and 40% of our population generally associate the holiday with negative emotions.

6. BREAKING: Valentine’s Day is a commercial holiday.

Peanuts Worldwide / Via basedonnothing.net

Nothing new here: The only people benefiting from the manufactured holiday are greeting card companies who have placed a market value on love (and some buzz words that convey it).

7. Let’s break these numbers down:

Last year…
• Americans sent 150 billion cards to help express themselves.
• the average consumer shelled out about $131 toward the holiday (it’s the highest average in 11 years),
• total spending was expected to reach $18.6 billion.
• greeting cards were the most common gifts (making up 54.7%), followed by candy (51%), flowers (36.6%), and an evening out (36.2%).

8. One origin of the holiday credits the ancient Roman festival “Lupercalia,” which celebrated spring by pairing off women with men by lottery.

9. But wait. It gets darker: Tradition called for men to sacrifice a goat and a dog, then whip their women with the hides of the animals they had just slain.

The name of the hallmark holiday came from the execution of two men — both named St. Valentine — on Feb. 14, but years apart. Depicted above.

10. Some holiday companies have lovey-dovey sentiments all figured out, apparently.

Before Valentine’s Day 2006, Hallmark employed an 80-person staff to analyze previous sales patterns against hundreds of thousands of customer reviews, focus groups, and general in-store observations to create thousands of new cards that conjure precise sentiments.

11. A dozen long-stemmed red roses can be marked up to $75 around this time of year.

That’s roughly 30% higher than their usual price.

12. According to the U.S. Trade Census, the total value of fresh-cut roses imported for this year’s V-Day is $354,703,231.

The country is prepared.

13. The inundation of commercials puts tremendous pressure on men to deliver.

Words By : Mehwish Baseer