You can take this holiday and SHOVE IT.

Look, the Valentine’s Day we all know and loathe is undeniably the primary example of a cynical, pulled-out-of-thin air, what-can-we-get-people-to-spend-money-on-in-February Hallmark Holiday. Wikipedia blames it on a British publisher who in the late 18th century started selling the first pre-printed greeting cards with canned, vapid sweet-nothings for poor blokes without a creatively sentimental bone in their body. Combined with cheap postal rates, this let people send creepy, unoriginal, and repetitive love notes easily and anonymously. So THAT’S certainly romantic and not at all stalker-ish.

Alright, I’ll cop to the fact that I’ve had some truly horrendous Valentine’s Days. One year I really put my best effort into it. I got us a room for the night at a tucked-away hotel, set up said room with wine, candles, fancy bath stuff and a new mix tape for her to relax with while I was at work in the afternoon and did all the prep work to make her a fancy, oft-requested dinner—not to mention some seriously thoughtful and hard-to-find gifts. Now you’re just DYING to know how it all worked out, right? She got lost on the way to the hotel and called me at work to yell at me for whatever hare-brained idea I’d gotten her into. The dinner? Suffice it to say that the dead of winter in northern Vermont is a sub-optimal time and place for one’s first try at sashimi. And the kicker is that I’d figured out two or three days before Valentine’s Day that I wanted to dump her. But I wasn’t going to be that guy that dumped his girlfriend on (or even remotely near) Valentine’s Day! Some other sucker can be the horrible ex she tells the same stories about over and over again with her girlfriends! Holy crap it was an awful night.

And WHY? Why do we put ourselves through all this malarkey? Because the greeting card industry is full of money-grubbing emotional vampires, that’s why. If you’ve got a significant other, don’t let there be only one highly predictable and over-exposed day on which you tell them how you feel about them. And if you’re single, spend that money on yourself instead. I recommend spending it at the bar! With enough lubricant you can TOTALLY convince yourself that you’re not at all bummed to be single on Valentine’s Day (again) because it’s a stupid holiday for suckers anyway. And remember—Valentine’s Day is always right around when pitchers and catchers report! Baseball—so close you can smell it!