In many ways it actually seems fashionable to go about shouting left and right how every holiday and celebration is commercialized, de-spirited and fake. And of course, most of all the dreaded Valentine’s Day.

Love them all year long

I keep hearing over and over again, how it’s bad, because we shouldn’t cherish our loved ones only one day in a year. OK, so does that mean that everyone celebrating Valentine’s Day ignores (or even abuses) their spouse for the other 364. Statements like the above certainly imply so.

Well if you do, than a fake Valentine’s Day celebration is the least of your relationships worry.

Let’s be honest, most of us are not ridiculously rich, and don’t have all days with nothing to do. This in turn means that most of us don’t have candle lit dinners every single evening. Also unless you live near a free flower supply (like say a country side field) buying a bouquet every day would quickly lead to bankruptcy. And how long can you live on love alone with no food nor roof over your head?

Special days like this are just a nice excuse to do something different. It’s exactly the same as with your birthday and/or names-day. It’s an occasion to celebrate, get together, exchange gifts, greeting and generally something to break out of the usual routine. As an atheist I celebrate Valentine’s Day for the same reasons why I celebrate Christmas and Easter - because I like the tradition. Because certain habits are actually nice when done once a year (like eating carp is pretty much the only time I eat fish).

Show Your Affection Without an Occasion

I’m far from saying that you should limit yourself to Valentine’s only. Yes, I personally love surprises, and just as much as I like getting presents I like giving them. Of course you do not need an occasion to give a gift to your loved one, be it a present or just doing something for them that you know they like.

But this is usually the little, everyday life things we are talking about: cooking his favourite dish, using a perfume he likes, smearing nearly all food in barbecue sauce, holding hands, an ad hoc kiss, a hug when he’s watching tv, and many many more. These are the things that can and probably should be done every day (not necessarily all at once, but still).

However for some bizarre reason these little affection showing acts tend to be put together with things that really are nicer when are done on special occasions. They ARE in fact what makes the special occasions special!

Let’s say for argument’s sake that you do have a candle lit dinner every day. Do you really think that after forty years of doing it daily it will still feel magical? Will it still be something special, or is that just going to be come the new routine?

The Gift Frenzy

We live in a society that really is highly commercialized and full of consumerism, it’s hard to deny that. In that sense getting a gift on a special day like Valentine’s does introduce the additional wait and excitement. Rather than expect to be showered with gifts all year round, and almost immediately satisfying every whim we have, certain holidays give us the chance to make it something more meaningful.

Admittedly some people do turn it into a bit of a competition to get the largest card, the biggest teddy-bear, and  the most impressive bouquet… I do not intend to take part in such race, as do many other people celebrating Valentine’s day, so why condemn the holiday as a whole just because some people go over the top?

Singles Have Feelings Too

It is true that on Valentine’s Day a lot of venues do target couples, and going out as a single might be a bitter reminder that you are alone. It shouldn’t be much of a problem if you are single by choice, should it? That’s the thing, many claiming that it’s their decision, and so on and so forth, in fact secretly would love to find a soul mate.

Now one uncomfortable point is one of the previous arguments: asking for the love and affection parade to be not a one day affair. Would all those unhappy on a single day of increased love expression REALLY want to see it out in the open more often?

I do sympathize with the people that are alone despite wishing it was different. For a long while I was single myself and had to bare with Valentine’s. But you know what? It really wasn’t such a big deal. Yes it did make me feel a bit lonely, however it often also made me realize that I would like to have someone to spend my life with, and it made me think on that day about who am I really looking for. At the end of the day if you really feel so uncomfortable among all those couples that just stay at home for that one night.

Lastly Valentine’s Day doesn’t have to be about not having a partner. Why not turn it round and make it the night when you find one? Go for a date, maybe go to a mixed or singles only party, there are many opportunities if you just look at things from the right perspective.

I Love Valentine’s

…and I’m not afraid to admit it. I love all kinds of festive occasions. They are something to look forward to, they’re an excuse to decorate your house with a certain theme and maybe do something out of the ordinary.

In some way people are actually afraid to admit that they enjoy the holiday, because everyone else seems to be negative and complaining about it. Just because it is fashionable to say Valentine’s Day is commercial, it doesn’t mean you have to pretend you agree. Even if you agree it doesn’t mean yours has to be like that.

Happy Valentine’s Day to everyone. Enjoy it in your own special way. And to all those on the lookout for their special one, good luck to you.

I have a lot of email addresses. Plenty of accounts that I have accumulated over the years, by signing up to this or that service. For convenience reasons nowadays I actually forward practically all of them to my main gmail account (Yes, I am a bit of a Google fan-girl). This has various advantages - like for starters not having to remember a plethora of logins and passwords, however from time to time it can cause a major havoc.

And this is exactly what happened the other day. One of my Polish accounts suffered from configuration issues, which meant that a supposedly one way mailing list email, allowed any person to send a message to that address and it would have been delivered to quite a hefty amount of recipients.

What made it even worse was that it was not an active mailing group. It has been used for some survey purposes ages ago, and thus most users didn’t even know (myself included) that such a list existed. Once the information leaked out you can clearly imagine what had happened. In short spam was arriving long after the issue has actually been fixed…

But this is just a little background information. What I found fascinating is how the whole matter developed over time.

It all started with a single message asking if it is true, that if you send an email to ankieta@gazeta.pl it gets sent to all of its subscribers. Personally I thought it was just a single  random spam, and I ignored it. Especially as for a while there was no response.

After some time several more messages popped-up, like shy little monsters poking their heads out of a hole. Most of these were simply “test” or “it’s really true!” emails.

Later the momentum quickly grew and the messages got less curious, and more offensive. Making fun of the admin or sending nasty messages about other mailing list users. Also this prompted more requests for someone investigating the issue, being removed from the list or just saying “hello, have a good day”.

Next finally came the messages with links. I was genuinely surprised how long it took for those to appear. At first the initial process was repeated. A few personal websites, some even with an apologetic note like “sorry for the spam, but this is just a too good occasion to be missed”. And I must say I even checked out some of the first links, and as such I can say they were not offensive or scamy.

Unfortunately this did not last long. And once the links started pouring through they quickly escalated to full blown spam, shop advertisments, etc. Often no message at all, just a link slapped in an email.

This in turn provoked a bigger number of pleads to the admins for fixing the issue or to remove the poor soul from the list, threats against the company breaking privacy laws and surprisingly quite a few humorous responses.

Amazingly some people just ignored all the junk and sent greetings to other anonymous users, or even personal ads. Which really does show that even faced with a disaster (yes, my finger still hurts from sieving through all those run-away messages and clicking delete…) people can still take life quite lightly and smile.