What I Know For Sure...: My Funny Valentine

Valentine's Day is a time to celebrate romance and love and kissy-face fealty ranging from the sweet to the obnoxious. Though no one has pinpointed the exact origin of the holiday, one good place to start is ancient Rome, where men hit on women by, well, hitting them. Seriously. 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. Young women would actually line up for the men to hit them, Lenski says. They believed this would make them fertile. The brutal fete included a matchmaking lottery, in which young men drew the names of women from a jar. The couple would then be, um, coupled up for the duration of the festival – or longer, if the match was right. Still think your Valentine’s Day is going to be bad? Then think about what you just read and know it could be worse. Then again, I’m not an ancient Roman so who know how I would have felt about this, um, charming ritual.

William Shakespeare helped romanticize Valentine's Day in his work, and it gained popularity throughout Britain and the rest of Europe. As the years went on, the holiday grew sweeter. Chaucer and Shakespeare romanticized it in their work, and it gained popularity throughout Britain and the rest of Europe. Handmade paper cards became the tokens-du-jour in the Middle Ages.

Eventually, the tradition made its way to the New World. The industrial revolution ushered in factory-made cards in the 19th century. And in the early 1900s, Hallmark Cards of Kansas City, Mo., began mass producing valentines. February has not been the same since.

And so the celebration of Valentine's Day goes on, in varied ways. Many will break the bank buying jewelry and flowers for their beloveds. Others will celebrate in a SAD (that's Single Awareness Day) way, dining alone and binging on self-gifted chocolates. A few may even be spending this day the same way the early Romans did. But let's not go there.

In looking up some of these facts about Valentine’s Day, I found the quotes below. I had a completely different set of quotes that I was going to use here but these were too precious not to share.

I will, however, share one quote about love. Because I think that the most important love is knowing to love yourself. Thus my favorite love quote from RuPaul:

Amen!

Children, aged 5 to 10, were asked questions about what they thought of love and marriage. The results are funny, honest, and pretty interesting:

Love and Marriage:

· "If falling in love is anything like learning how to spell, I don't want to do it. It takes too long." -- Glenn, age 7

· "Love is the most important thing in the world, but baseball is pretty good too." -- Greg, age 8

· "Once I'm done with kindergarten, I'm going to find me a wife." -- Tom, age 5

· "I'm in favor of love as long as it doesn't happen when Dinosaurs is on television." -- Jill, age 6

· "It gives me a headache to think about that stuff. I'm just a kid. I don't need that kind of trouble." -- Kenny, age 7

· "I'm not rushing into being in love. I'm finding fourth grade hard enough." -- Regina, age 10

· "Love is foolish...but I still might try it sometime." -- Floyd, age 9

· "Love will find you, even if you are trying to hide from it. I been trying to hide from it since I was five, but the girls keep finding me." -- Dave, age 8

Kissing:

· "When a person gets kissed for the first time, they fall down, and they don't get up for at least an hour." -- Wendy, age 8

· "You learn [how to kiss] right on the spot when the gooshy feelings get the best of you." -- Doug, age 7

· "I know one reason kissing was created. It makes you feel warm all over, and they didn't always have electric heat or fireplaces or even stoves in their houses." -- Gina, age 8

· "The law says you have to be eighteen, so I wouldn't want to mess with that." -- Curt, age 7

How People In Love Act:

· "Lovers will just be staring at each other and their food will get cold. Other people care more about the food." -- Brad, age 8

· "They act mooshy. Like puppy dogs, except puppy dogs don't wag their tails nearly as much." -- Arnold, age 10

· "It's love if they order one of those desserts that are on fire. They like to order those because it's just like how their hearts are -- on fire." -- Christine, age 9

How To Tell If Two People Are Married:

· "Married people usually look happy to talk to other people." -- Eddie, age 6

· "You might have to guess based on whether they seem to be yelling at the same kids." -- Derrick, age 8

Deciding Who To Marry:

· "You got to find somebody who likes the same stuff. Like if you like sports, she should like it that you like sports, and she should keep the chips and dip coming." -- Allan, age 10

· "No person really decides before they grow up who they're going to marry. God decides it all way before, and you get to find out later who you're stuck with." -- Kirsten, age 10

Strategies For Making People Fall In Love With You:

· "Tell them that you own a whole bunch of candy stores." -- Del, age 6

· "Shake your hips and hope for the best." -- Camille, age 9

· "Yell out that you love them at the top of your lungs...and don't worry if their parents are right there." -- Manuel, age 8

Good Advice:

· "Dates are for having fun, and people should use them to get to know each other. Even boys have something to say if you listen long enough." -- Lynnette, age 8· "Tell your wife that she looks pretty even if she looks like a truck!" -- Ricky, age 7· "Don't forget your wife's name. That will mess up the love." -- Erin, age 8· "Sensitivity don't hurt." -- Robbie, age 8· "Be a good kisser. It might make your wife forget that you never take out the trash." -- Erin, age 8

What To Do When a First Date Turns Sour:

· "I'd run home and play dead. The next day I would call all the newspapers and make sure they wrote about me in all the dead columns." -- Craig, age 9