A sergeant leader of an army grew angry at his soldiers’ unwillingness to leave their wives behind. To fix this, he banned all marriages. Outraged by this new law, St. Valentine continued to marry people. The leader discovered this rebellion. On Feb. 14th, St. Valentine was beheaded. Today, we celebrate Valentine’s Day on Feb. 14th as a holiday based around love.

While this holiday came out of a gruesome beheading, we still celebrate being in love by giving each other gifts. Even though it is about love, we tend to only focus on only the boyfriend/girlfriend part.

There are unspoken rules to Valentine’s Day. The guy has to buy the girl flowers or chocolate. The girl gets the guy a card or a little teddy bear. These roles may change depending on your significant other, but the gifts are normally the same.

Since this is a show of your love, the pressure is on to get the best thing for your ‘boo.’

Now say that you are single on this stress inducing holiday. Since this is a holiday based fully on relationships, you are alone. Your only hope is if your friends get you are little box of chocolates.

If you focus on general love and not just the boyfriend/girlfriend aspect, the holiday goes from depressing to joyous. Instead of focusing on being single, you get to celebrate your amazing friends or family

When your attention is only on whether or not you are dating someone, the holiday becomes negative instead of full of love like it should be.

Celebrate the love you get from your friends and family, not your wannabe ‘bae.’

Valentine’s Day is based around love, but doesn’t always celebrate all kinds of love. Everyone has a special person in their life that should get a day to be celebrated because of how much love they have shown you.