Dear lovers, it is Valentine’s day!

So-called cultural pessimists might insist that Valentine’s Day is a hoax. The greeting card and florist industries teamed up to drive sweat onto the foreheads of men and lift women into 7th heaven. There is barely another holiday splitting society in two, like the declared day of love does.

Back to the Future: florist time travelers

In fact, there is, or better said was, Saint Valentinus. The only thing to be discussed about it is how many there were since scientific research, and the presentation of the character very likely contains the stories of more than one martyr with the beautiful sounding name. IN the year 469, Pope Gelasius established the Saint Valentinus memorial day for the whole church only to have it removed from the roman general calendar in the 60s. The idea of the love patron lived on and survived this renunciation from love. That would leave is with celebrating the 1551st Valentine’s Day this year. What florists did is commercializing the holiday, so they have a saying in the history of the day. Just not a fundamental one.

After the Second World War, US soldiers that were stationed in Germany made the annual love tradition famous, and ever since, we picked it up. The present number one, of course, were and still are flowers. To give you a perspective on that, in 2018, Lufthansa Cargo transported 800 tons of red roses to Germany for the holiday alone so that we could cater to our beloved ones. On a side note, this is not very climate neutral.

A festival of poetry

Besides flowers for him or her, another popular form of love declaration is poetry. In the absence of ideas, many let the creativity flow through them and became veritable hobby-poets to see themselves not losing their heads when it comes to showing some good old fashioned love. The oldest existing Valentine’s Day poem was brought to us by Karl, the Duke of Olréans. It was a rondeau to his wife, beginning like this:

“Je suis desja d’amour tanné,
Ma tres doulce Valentinée, “

I am dying from love,
My sweet valentine, “

In preparation for the article, we looked at search results for “Valentine’s day “and “Valentine’s day gifts, “and we focused not on page 1 but on what for some people is already the darknet: page 4,5 and so on. We saw some pretty funny stuff, including a cup that says “u da best “- we guess this is the modern-day poetry.

What else did we find:

February 14th is a day of a commanded affection, love at the press of a button, and nothing near a self-initiated campaign of love. That’s why there are probably a few things on our gift highlight list that might raise eyebrows. Heart-shaped bath bombs, perfume, and the couple spa day are just a few things that quickly become kitsch rather than being romantic.
A real highlight was the best Valentine’s sayings for WhatsApp. I mean, who wouldn’t fall in love even deeper over a few emojis on the day of love. We give ten out of ten romance points. An online pharmacy offers moisturizers as if love should not know any wrinkles. It’s even more clear that somehow every business jumps on the love bandwagon to make some profit while at the same time, love should be something completely noncommercial, right?

Our plea for love

Whether someone likes Valentine’s Day or not, everyone has to decide on their own. Of course, we have been a bit ironic during this article, but we also enjoy the vibe of the day. Who doesn’t like love? In the end, it’s about finding that person that you roll your eyes about just to burst into laughter and fall into a sincere smile. We want to give you the present of our most beautiful couples for Valentine’s day. You can find those in our pinboard of the day.