"Taws the night before Valentine's Day"

*****                                                           Valentines  

     OK,'Taws the night before Valentine's Day and all through the house, not a creature was stirring. Well, except for Karl W, who's up late writing another newsletter for you? And since I basically defiled a cherished Christmas poem to begin with, it’s probably worth mentioning that technically it's the night BEFORE the night before Valentine's Day for me. Whatever.

      So, I have been thinking a lot about Valentine's Day lately. And I've been talking about it with friends as well. As I was reading some of my Hello email, I noticed that there was not one, not two, but THREE different ads inside of EVERY email viewer window selling FLOWERS for Valentine's Day. You gotta love AOL-'s way of sneaking those ads into every one of your emails, huh? ANYWAY, as I was realizing what BIG BUSINESS Valentine's Day must be, I started wondering, where the heck did Valentine's Day come from? So, I decided to do a little research. Well, as it turns out, there are several different stories about the origin of Valentine's Day, but one of them is by far the most common. Wanna hear it? Here it goes. So, back in about the year 270 A.D. or so, there was a priest named, you guessed it, Valentine. Some versions of the story said that he was a Bishop. Either way in those days the Emperor needed men for his army and he decided that it wasn't good to have men marrying up with women, because then the men would be more attached to their families than the army. So, the Emperor OUTLAWED marriage. Yep, he said, “It’s illegal to get married”. Those were the days, huh? OK, so Priest or Bishop Valentine decided that he was going to help young lovers out by marrying them in SECRET. Well, the Emperor got wind of this business, and put a stop to it in a "New York Minute". So, here’s Priest/Bishop Valentine sitting alone in prison and who comes along? The super-babe, young daughter of the jail owner's daughter and, of course, he falls in love with her. One version of the story I read said, that she was blind and he healed her of her blindness.

     In any event,right before his execution yeah, they killed him for performing marriages); he wrote a letter to this girl he was in love with and at the end signed it "From Your Valentine". And then he was executed. okay. Fast forward several centuries and now everyone is out buying heart-shaped cards, chocolate, and long-stemmed red roses for women who have come to expect them. Gotta love it! Aside from me wanting to know what the HECK a Catholic Priest was doing falling in love with a youngster way back in the year 270 (Over 1,700 years before this kind of thing was fashionable),I want to know how this turned into men chasing around with gifts for women in the year 2014! I get it, I get it. It's nice to have a day out of the year to celebrate your love for that special someone in your life. Very cute. And if you're reading this right now and your ‘remarried or you've had a girlfriend for a year or two, then by all means get her some flowers and chocolate and one of those cute pink cards.

       But what about the REST of us? Well, here’s a little gem of wisdom from one of my all-time favorite books, "The Rules". Yeah women, the book that teaches women how to manipulate men into marrying them. Here's it is: RULE 1 Stop dating him if he doesn't buy you a romantic gift for your birthday or Valentine's Day." Nope, I'm not kidding. By the way, a whole CHAPTER is dedicated to this rule in the book. In the chapter, it basically says that if a man doesn’t buy you jewelry (or some other romantic gift) for one of these holidays, then our should dump him, because he's not going to buy you the “big gift" of an engagement ring. Now, before I present my radical extremist opposing perspective, I must first give you the disclaimer. I think that long-term relationships are great,and if you're one of the lucky guys on this planet who has found a really exceptional woman, then more power to you, and I hope she likes the romantic gifts that you got her. Really, but for all the rest of us single guys (or guys who have just started dating a woman); I think that Valentine's Day can be kind of a drag. Why?

      Because there's another, more "subtle" message that this whole event communicates: The way to win a woman's heart is to buy her flowers, gifts,and jewelry, and to confess your feelings for her. And if she still doesn't like you, then you probably didn't get her enough gifts, or say the right things in the card. While this idea of giving romantic gifts to show your love light Be wonderful and healthy for LONGER-TERM relationships, it’s usually a HORRIBLE concept for guys to use with women that they have just met,or who they've only dated a few times.

To be continued before Valentines day

DR.KARL WALLACE D.D.S.