Valentine’s Day is celebrated adoringly; it is named after Saint Valentine who was a catholic priest who lived in Rome in the third century.

During those days in Rome, many Romans were converting to Christianity, but the Emperor Claudius II was a Pagan (Pagans are followers of a polytheistic or pantheistic nature-worshipping religion). Claudius made some strict laws about what Christians were allowed to do. He firmly believed that Roman soldiers should be completely devoted to Rome and therefore passed a law averting them from marrying. St Valentine started helping the soldiers to marry secretly in Christian ceremonies because Valentine believed that love has positive effects in life and nothing comes above love. Saint Valentine’s reputation grew day by day as devotee of love.

In due course Claudius found out that Valentine was helping the soldiers to marry secretly and he was jailed for his ‘crime’ of getting the soldiers married. In the imprisonment, Valentine was sympathetic with his fellow prisoners and he felt very sympathetic for the jailor’s blind daughter. It seems, Valentine cured the girl’s blindness and before he got executed he wrote a love message for the girl signed as ‘from your Valentine’. Valentine was executed on 14 February in the year 270.

Since then 14^th February is celebrated as ‘Valentine’s Day’ in many countries around the world. This day is famous for sending love messages by lovers to each other. People send special cards expressing their affection, roses, cupids, chocolates, gifts, jewelry etc. Usually, people send beautiful handmade cards to their lovers. The sender shows how much he/she loves the recipient. Cards usually contain sentimental verse, proclaiming the beauty of the receiver and how much they are loved.

Valentine’s Day is most commonly associated with romantic love, with millions of Valentine’s Day cards being exchanged each year. Gifts of flowers or a single red rose are sent with romantic messages to loved ones and couples spend special time together. Valentine’s Day gift hampers are also a popular gift and typically include flowers, champagne and chocolates.

Valentine’s Day generates record-breaking flower sales and the exchange of over a billion boxes of chocolate. For brands, it provides a much-needed sales boost following a post-Christmas lull. Even during global economic slowdowns, companies cash in on Valentine Day’s with record sales of popular gift articles like flowers, jewelry, chocolates, toys, readymade garments, mobile phones, electronic gadgets, wrist watches, perfumes etc.

Some particulars about Valentine’s Day:

• Do you know that Valentine’s Day is a $14.7 billion industry in the U.S, and in India it is about Rs.15 billion?
• Americans spend around $277 million on Valentine cards every year, second only to Christmas!!
• It seems the condom company Durex reports that condom sales are 20-30% higher around Valentine’s Day Valentine’s Day (V-Day) in India.
• Valentine’s Day was first introduced to Japan in 1936 and has become widely popular. However, because of a translation error made by a chocolate company, only women buy Valentine chocolates for their spouses, boyfriends, or friends. In fact, it is the only day of the year many single women will reveal their crush to opposite sex by giving them chocolates. The men don’t return the favor until White Day, a type of “answer day” to Valentine’s Day, which they celebrate on March 14^th.
• On Valentine’s Day in 2010, 39,897 people in Mexico City broke the record for the world’s largest group kiss!
• Richard Cadbury produced the first box of chocolates for Valentine’s Day in the late 1800s
• A kiss on Valentine’s Day is considered to bring good luck all throughout the year.
• On Valentine’s Day, many people buy flowers. Different colored roses have different meanings: Red means love, yellow means friendship, and pink means friendship or sweetheart. Red carnations mean admiration, white carnations mean pure love, red chrysanthemums mean love, forget-me-nots mean true love, primrose means young love, and larkspur means an open heart!
• Traditionally, young girls in the U.S. and the U.K. believed they could tell what type of man they would marry depending on the type of bird they saw first on Valentine’s Day. If they saw a blackbird, they would marry a clergyman, a robin redbreast indicated a sailor, and a goldfinch indicated a rich man. A sparrow meant they would marry a farmer, a blue bird indicated a happy man, and a crossbill meant an argumentative man. If they saw a dove, they would marry a good man, but seeing a woodpecker meant they would not marry at all.
• Roses and Cupids are favorites of lovers. Do you know, Cupid was one of the gods of mythology? In Latin, the word Cupid means “desire.” Cupid is typically represented as a chubby, naked, winged boy or youth with a mischievous smile. He possessed a bow with a quiver of arrows by which he transfixed the hearts of youths and maidens. Cherubs are descendants of Cupid. They are depicted as lovable little winged creatures without arrows and quivers. Cherubs were typically not mischievous like Cupid.
• Valentine’s Day cards are decorated with pictures of cupid, hearts and flowers and trimmed with lace and ribbon. These images are still used today to symbolize love and are recognized all over the world.
• Marriage proposals are popular on Valentine’s Day, and it is often chosen as the perfect day to express a person’s love and commitment. Some marriage proposals are sent very creatively, such as after climbing to the top of a mountain, or posting a message on a billboard, sending a proposal with a small girl or a boy. Whatever the method, marriage proposals made on Valentine’s Day are generally romantic and memorable.
• Friends, while Valentine’s Day is celebrated in most countries, different cultures have developed their own traditions for this festival. In some parts of the world Valentine’s Day is observed as a day for expressing love between family members and friends. It is not only celebrated by romantic couples. Some traditions include keeping chocolates and gifts in children’s bedroom do that they see them first in the morning. And, some people celebrate it for expressing appreciation between friends. Families go for outings, picnics and luncheons to celebrate unity and love for each other.Most of us think that love is about just talking kindly, warm and cute words to others. But in reality is expressing love is different and hard. So what the true love meant to be? It is caring of someone you love, being with him/her when he/her needs you the most. Love is not just telling “I love you”, it is about being together in thick and thin times, giving the emotional and physical support. Also, in good times having fun together.So dear friends enjoy the Valentine’s Day with your loved ones, your friends, your pets, your neighbors with humanity.

Psyche was the most beautiful woman in her land and it seems men came to take a glimpse of her from faraway lands. This reality infuriated Aphrodite, the goddess of Beauty and mother of Cupid as her temple used to be visited in large numbers but when people learnt about Psyche, she started getting all attention and Aphrodite was neglected. Hence, Aphrodite asked her son to use one of his arrows to make Psyche fall in love with ugliest man in the world. Cupid being an obedient son went to shoot an arrow at Psyche as he spotted her looking at the ugliest man in the crowd outside her house, but the moment he noticed her face, he dropped the arrow which fell on his foot and this made him fall in love with her. But he couldn’t marry her because that would annoy his mother and also because he was a god and she was a mortal.

Meanwhile Psyche’s father was worried because everyone wanted to look at Psyche or meet her but no man wanted to marry her for she was so beautiful and each man thought it would be difficult for him to look after her.  Psyche’s father went to Zeus’ temple for advice. Zeus decided to play Cupid’s wingman, also it was predicted that Psyche would marry a demon. Psyche’s father was advised to drop her at a mountain peak on a moonless night so that the demon could take her away to his land. Her father was hassled initially but after a lot of emotional drama he left her at the mountain peak for her destined husband to pick her up. She obviously couldn’t see who he was because it was dark; he took her to a palace above clouds which was again totally dark.

Her husband explained the rules of their marriage to her: she will not see him as he would only visit her at night in the dark without any lights. She will not make any contact with her family.  During the day, invisible servants would take care of all her needs. He also told her that he would leave her if she ever tries to see his face.

So night after night he visited Psyche and she obviously got a feeling that he’s not a demon but hiding something else because you know, he felt like a person probably with decent enough features. After both became familiar to each other, Psyche coaxed him one day to let her talk to her sisters and allow them to visit her. He permitted. Her sisters came to visit her and got a little jealous of her palace and her demon husband who was very caring. They told her to hold a lamp over his face when he falls asleep that night to see how he looks. She did exactly that, knowing well that he would leave her if she’s caught, because she just had to know what he was hiding. She realized that he was Cupid, the most handsome god and not an ugly demon.

But cupid woke up and shocked her, his sudden action hit the lamp in Psyche’s hand and a jolt made the hot oil from the lamp fall into his eyes. The hot oil made Cupid blind. He got really angry with her for breaking her promise and spill out oil in his eyes. Psyche tried to console Cupid, she begged of him to not leave her, but he left her.  Psyche tracked cupid down and found that he was living with his mom, who obviously didn’t like her and thus instead of saying no to her, she promised that she would allow her to see Cupid if she accomplishes few unfeasible tasks. Psyche agrees to do those impossible tasks because of her desperation. She accomplishes everything and gets to see Cupid and discovers that he is blind because of her oil spill.

The story goes further that after becoming blind Cupid still runs around hitting anyone with arrows at any time and sometimes he forgets to hit the other person all together. Therefore, love is blind!! As a result often love is chaotic madness.

We most often see that lovers are blind to the beloved’s negative traits and tend to create an idealized (imaginative) image of the beloved. When people fall in love, they fantasize idealized traits in their lover rather than the real ones. We go blind when we fall in love. Indeed people often say that they are living out their dreams with their beloved. Positive illusions are in fact central to romantic love. Lovers do not see clearly their beloved’s negative traits and tend to create imaginative traits instead.

One reason for idealizing the beloved is that we tend to evaluate positively that which we desire. Our preference leads to its positive assessment. Idealization of the beloved may also be considered as a kind of defense mechanism, enabling us to justify our partly subjective choice. A similar defense mechanism works when a person buys a new car, and refuses to look at its drawbacks; instead he harps on some ingenious features. Men seem to idealize women more than women idealize men. For example, a survey of love songs has found that females are more often described as “divine,” “angel,” “moon” than males.

Every person who falls in love experiences variety of agonies and pleasures of love. Each person has his/her own character and personality; they have different backgrounds and conditions. So there is no set of rule that applies equally to everyone. Also, whom a person dates is also a matter of personal choice. No one has any right to intrude in anybody’s private affair. The youngsters say, not even their parents.  But, our heart and gut do give us signals about the right or the wrong person. Do we hear to them?

After few years of marriage, people are able to indicate their partner’s character defects, physical defects, and bad habits. Moreover, we may love an evil person, an unintelligent person, an aesthetically unpleasant person, or an arrogant person while knowing this person to be so. The cognitive change of gaining additional negative information about the person does not necessarily lead to separation. However, if love is to be sustained, the cognitive change must be accompanied by an evaluative change compensating for the new negative information.

Most married people In light of the complexity typical of love and the fact that lovers are often unwilling to face reality commit self-deception. They curse their choice and their blindness in initial phase of falling in love. Perhaps because of the battle between good and bad in our character, we get attracted to the opposite of what we are.  Don’t we often see, a nice guy, falling for a nasty female and the vice versa? The lust you feel for someone different not only adds an element in your life that was previously missing, but it also adds to the challenge of sustaining the gap. It is certainly one explanation for why the sweetest of girls end up with the biggest jerk around. And, a good guy follows the devilish girl. The challenge of conquering the heart of someone very opposite than what a person is adds to the passion.

The initial ignorance of the person’s characteristics, which is expressed in idealization, is later replaced with a more realistic picture based upon new and more detailed information. Many divorcees testify that their partners cheated them; and they mistook their partner’s characteristics. The lover’s blindness is not necessarily due to misperception of the beloved’s traits; it may also be a matter of distorted evaluation in the sense of focusing upon positive qualities only.

Because people often lose all objectivity when they fall in love, it is said ‘Love is blind’.