Relationships and Valentine's Day.

With tomorrow being Valentine's Day, it got me thinking about not just mine, but the love relationships of people around me. 

Some observations I have made is we pay the most attention to our love relationships usually when the Media and Big Business tells us to.  Of course we have to, after all, we are consumers and they want our money and it's the perfect time to prey on the insecurities in our relationships.  Let me explain.

Valentine's Day is a significant celebration of love, culturally if you're Christian, but definitely Commercially.  How this plays on the insecurities of relationships in North America is mostly to do with females. 

I've noticed that Women have this peculiar thing they do AFTER Valentine's Day.
They run into each other in some way or another and then ask that question: "What did you do for Valentine's Day?".  This question on the surface seems rather benign, but it's so fraught with underlying possibilities of where it can go and be interpreted.
It's interesting if you ever get to observe this conversation between two women.  While they're both happy and listening to each other's story, what they really want to do is tell THEIR story (that is, if they in fact had a good Valentine's Day).  There's almost this air of implicitly "one upping" the other on whose Valentine's Day was better.  The result is that their relationship looks and sounds great, and this fills that need to appear to be in a good relationship and perhaps to appear better than things really are in the view of other people.  
When they get that "Wow, that's amazing, he's so sweet!" or something equivalent, it makes them feel secure they're with the right partner.
On the other hand, if one of them didn't have a good Valentine's Day (their significant other forgot), you can see the awkward, almost hesitancy to keep talking about the subject.

For Men, this plays out differently.  We know we have to do something different, good or special to make our significant other happy on this day.  Some men know why, some don't.  For men who know, we try desperately to fill that expectation because the simple act of demonstrating our love isn't in the flowers we give, the gift's we buy or the restaurant we made reservations at.  It is in the fact we showed our love by giving the woman a good experience to tell her friends.  And we do care that we give them something positive to talk about to their friends, family and colleagues.
For Men who don't know, this creates confusion sometimes.  Men who don't notice the above point, wonder why their significant other doesn't appear happy, after all, he brought home a box of Lindt chocolates, he showed his love, what the heck!
While the woman doesn't get mad and because she loves him, she won't make him feel bad.  She'll be that awkward one during that conversation the next day in the work lunch room.  This thought of "I won't have much to tell." will definitely linger in her mind and won't make her happy.  This is because she's already comparing the story of her gift to the what the other women might say.

The people who know this all too well, are Big Businesses.  They essentially put us all on the spot by advertising when Valentine's Day is, so if the day goes by and you didn't buy something or spend money in any way, shame on you!  And everyone knows it!

I'm saying all of this with some jest of course, however this is more apparent than not in most cases. 

When it comes to love, we don't need a day with a name to tell us when we should be expressing our love to our significant other.  Everyday should hold the same value to us in our actions and expression of love for our partners.