Ah, it's Valentine's Day. The sweet aroma of roses and lonely desperation fill the air. It's a day that began in America with a woman named Esther Howland, the woman who produced the first commercial American valentines in the 1840s, sold $5,000 in cards during her first year of business. Ever since, the valentine's day business has boomed in America. Once again, losing the humanity of another celebratory day behind commercialism. Though, there is some things that are better left forgotten.
In the Roman Catholic sense, St. Valentine was an early priest. During times of mass war, the Romans decided that loveless soldiers were best, so they banned marriage for young soldiers. However, St. Valentine held secret marriages to all, exemplifying the spirit of true love. However, there is an old Greek myth that haunts this spirit of love. This myth, is the being known as Cupid.
In Greek times, Cupid was the God of Love. His mother, Venus, fell deeply in envy of a mortal name Psyche. In her jealousy, she asked Cupid to go steal some one Psyche's beauty, but Cupid feel in love. Venus did whatever she could to ruin this bond, for it was blaspheme for a God to be with a Human. This eventually lead to the "deathly slumber" of Psyche.
Now, Cupid haunts among us. This mischievous chubby cherub flies around arbitrarily messing with innocent humans shooting his “love-poisoned” arrows into anyone who catches his eye. He's the reason for those few years of both utter confusion, and unsettling hygiene, that plagued my early teens. A less informed journalist would just chalk this up to puberty, but now I know better.
So, do is true love free will? Is Cupid the reason for an all time high American divorce rate of 50%? I had to take to the streets of Albany to raise awareness about the hallmark hellboy known as Cupid.
Talking to a group of girls from SDT, a university sorority, it's apparent that I am not the only who sees the evil behind this deceitful day. One has even bitter enough to say that "being single on valentine's day is like being jewish on christmas." Utter despair. They began to go on to explain that their loss of faith in love is a lot to do with past relationships. Whether it was "being completely ignored until he was done with me," or "being cheated on with my best friend," it was clear that love had failed them. From experience, I know that girls like these usually are the smartest ones when it comes to picking a good guy, so this must be proof of Cupid's evils.
Moving on to the podium, I stop a couple to ask how their day was going. "Are you aware that there is a Greek Mythological Creature that has poisoned you into believing you love the man next to you?" I asked. With a crooked, effortless smile she said "I think love occurs in the places that we'd never think of looking." Hm, touché Cupid. After a in-depth debate in which I tried to politely explain that deception is the only logical reason a woman would be dating a man whose got more peircings than she had, I was shut down. Cupid clearly had them in his chokehold.
So, what is to be done. If cupid is the underlying evil behind making people fall in love, then he must be the reason we fall in hate. If this beefy baby is caught, history is going to have to be re-written. Newt Gingrich will become the true 40 year old virgin, and the princess will most certainly not kiss the frog. Love is blind indeed, blind as a bat.
