Ah, Valentine’s Day, a day of love, or a day of disappointment? It may be easy to see it merely as a Hallmark holiday, but we StaleCake-ians decided it’s more fun to embrace the love. No matter what, we seem to end up with a lot of chocolate, so how bad could it be?

Getting hit on – literally

The origins of Valentine’s Day are a bit murky. There were several saints named Valentine, so which one are we celebrating? But some people believe those fun loving, lion massacring Romans may have played a role.

From Feb. 13 to 15, the Romans celebrated the feast of Lupercalia. The men sacrificed a goat and a dog, then whipped women with the hides of the animals they had just slain.

The Roman romantics “were drunk. They were naked,” says Noel Lenski, a historian at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Young women would actually line up for the men to hit them, Lenski says. They believed this would make them fertile.

I personally like their version of the holiday much better than our current iteration. Ladies, who wouldn’t want to be smacked and beaten by men with the skins of sacrificed dogs and goats? Those Romans sure knew how to show a lady a good time.

The article also talks about a matchmaking lottery that would pair off young men and women for the Lupercalia festival, which kind of reminds us of speed-dating events with less small talk.

Sweet nothings

So where’s the romance? Chaucer and Shakespeare helped infuse the holiday with love and handmade valentine’s were all the rage. In 1797, if you couldn’t handle a verse like they could, The Young Man’s Valentine Writer had suggestions for you. Factory made cards, candy, flowers…

…and “Some dumb little thing from CVS” came soon after.

Nothing says I feel “meh “ about you than a Whitman’s sampler.

Sing your heart out

If a card doesn’t express how you feel, maybe one of these songs will!