If you’re not single, I hope you celebrated Valentine’s Day with your significant other the way it should have been celebrated: truly appreciating each other’s company while enjoying a stress-free day of laughter, smooches and inside jokes.

No matter which category you belong to, Valentine’s Day should have been a meaningful day of celebration. What it shouldn’t have been, however, is what so many of us choose to make it: a superficial 24-hour period with forced restaurant reservations, cheesy cards purchased at CVS, hoping you put enough effort into the day to make your better half somewhat satisfied with your performance as a romantic.

Did you know Valentine’s Day was established by Pope Gelasius I in 496 A.D. to honor Christian martyrs? Obviously, the meaning has lost some of its seriousness in 2010. Once a holiday of remembrance and spirituality, Valentine’s Day now is all about the correct color flowers and what movie to go to.

I remember when Valentine’s Day was cute and fun. In first grade, all of your classmates would give each classmate a valentine. And they were sweet valentines, too, with superheroes and Disney characters and action figures plastered all over them. And getting that one Spider-Man valentine from that one special someone made your heart skip a beat. They’d sign the back “from (insert incorrect spelling of child’s name),” and your week would be made.

Fast forward to seventh grade and the raging hormones of the teenage years consuming your motives. Girls go crazy weeks in advance, contemplating who they’ll slip a note to in the hall between third and fourth periods asking the big question: “Will you be my Valentine?” Thirteen-year-old boys who probably couldn’t care less about the holiday were utterly oblivious to the life-altering impact their answer would have. Although totally cheesy, immature and so juvenile, Valentine’s Day was quirky and cute in its own way. What happened to those days?

Okay, I might be getting melodramatic here, but we need to bring back the magic of Valentine’s Day. Spice it up, be original and most importantly, make the day all about you two. You might think from reading this that I’m anti-chocolates and a good dinner date, but I’m only against them when used as an impromptu, last-second go-to plan of action. If you and your girl or guy love the traditional stuff, go for it! I hope you ate that chocolate and got snazzy for a pasta dinner at your favorite restaurant. As long as it’s special, intimate and meaningful, you’re golden in my book.

I have to admit, Valentine’s Day 2009, I hit rock bottom. I woke up on Feb. 14 very aware that I was single and not celebrating the holiday. After a long day of hearing about the Valentine’s Day experiences of my friends and wanting to vomit, I get a card in the mail from my mom accompanied by a box of cookies from my 75-year-old neighbor. My love life might as well have jumped out the window of my seventh-floor Hubbard Hall dorm room to its death right then and there.

But looking back, how totally cute and awesome was that? For one, I got cookies, so my neighbor proved she truly did know the way to my heart. On top of that, I got meaningful presents from two very meaningful people in my life that I dearly missed. Knowing that they took the time to think of me and make my favorite cookies was just the icing on the cake.

So how did you spend your Valentine’s Day? Hopefully you embraced being taken (or single) and looked at the glass half full in either case. Hopefully you made it memorable and worthwhile, no matter if it was a lunch with friends or a walk through a museum with the love of your life.
Hopefully the holiday meant as much this year as it did when you saw that Spider-Man valentine years ago.

Rob Couch is a State News guest columnist and journalism junior. Reach him at couchrob@msu.edu.