  It can be humiliating to singles and devastating to someone who just went through a major breakup. (Comstock)
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Lots of guys think Valentine's Day is a racket.
It's perceived, possibly correctly, as an elaborate, organized scam perpetrated by the greeting card companies and chocolate makers to squeeze sex protection money from the wallets of men.
Women also have a love-hate relationship with Valentine's Day. Our hopes for Hollywood-style romantic gestures sometimes leave us feeling disappointed when our guy fails to live up to the hype. And for single women, there is no day we dread more.
Diana Rohini LaVigne, a writer who is now married says, "One thing that bothers me about this day is the pressure it places on single people to show there is someone who loves them. I see the flowers come into the office for all the married women and women in serious relationships. But I also see the conflicted emotions of employees who are not receiving anything that day.
"It can be humiliating to singles and devastating to someone who just went through a major breakup. Flowers should be banned from the office space that day so that everyone feels comfortable. The workplace shouldn't become a competition of who is loved best."
Kelly, who is 25 and single says, "I personally dislike Valentine's Day. It is true that on this very special day the bars will inevitably be swamped with single men, but that's beside the point. It's the only holiday that alienates people, and in this case it's the single people. It's as if there is something wrong with enjoying your single independent self."
It seems everybody and her cousin has a Valentine's Day horror story. I had a friend who was positive her boyfriend of three years was going to propose because he was acting all weird. Instead, he dumped her.
In a similar tale of woe, Mark, a dater, says he planned a big elaborate dinner for his girlfriend of three years. "I had flowers, a great restaurant, the works. At the end of the night, I pulled out my gift for her, a bracelet, and she burst into tears. She was apparently expecting an engagement ring. We broke up a few months later. Every time she looked at me I could see her disappointment, and it just became too much."
Susan Elliott , a certified grief counselor (and who better to help us deal with the ravages of Valentine's Day?) says, "I think that many men hate Valentine's Day because it feels like an obligation and they are judged by how well they 'perform' it."
In Elliott's own V-Day horror story: "The worst Valentine's Day gift I ever received was an 'I'm so confused and need to go off by myself and think' letter from my boyfriend. It's funny now but at the time, not so much! I cried my heart out and canceled a special dinner I had planned. After that I never really put a lot of stock into Valentine's Day. It seemed silly."
Eileen adds, "I was supposed to see a guy I had just started dating. I baked his favorite dessert -- cheesecake with, like, seven pounds of cream cheese. He DUMPED me on Valentine's Day. I took the cheesecake to work lest I eat it myself to drown my sorrow and on the way there I was in a vile accident. They had to cut a hole in the roof of the car to get me out. I was mostly out of it, but asked the ambulance guy on a date and offered him my cheesecake which was now full of broken glass and smeared all over the backseat. For some reason he said no."
Clair, a dater, had a boyfriend who, "after we had sex on Valentine's Day, proceeded to tell me that the night before he had picked up his drunk ex-wife from a party and allowed her to spend the night at his house. Yeah. Dumped him."
Danielle recalls, "I had this long distance lover once who was very arty. I was madly in love with him but the relationship was doomed, of course. For Valentine's Day I sent a card that had one of Van Gogh's self-portraits on the front and inside was taped a little rubber ear. My somewhat ironic but also secretly earnest message was that I loved him so much I'd cut off my ear for him, just as Van Gogh had famously done. I got a confused phone call from him -- a mix of guilt that he hadn't sent me anything and a need to clarify that he was NOT my boyfriend. And then he said in his very sexy accent: 'And what about dis ear, Dani? Dis is disgusting!' The relationship ended soon afterward."
Cynthia McKay, CEO of Le Gourmet Gift Basket admits, "My gift may be the worst Valentine's Gift in the history of presents! I had been dating a guy for about two weeks. He knew I was an animal lover, so when Valentine's Day came around, he showed up at my door with a gift. It was a flying squirrel.
"I never said I liked flying rodents, and he just assumed this would be a great offering. I was trying to be gracious and opened the cage door to pet the squirrel. It flew at me, bit me and went back out the front door. My idiot date didn't know where the thing came from since he paid 'some guy' to get it for him. I ended up in the Emergency room until 3 am getting a full regiment of tests and injections to rule out rabies. I never saw that guy or the squirrel again."
But not every crappy Valentine's Day ends in tears or a trip to the ER.
Ally says, "Six years ago, I met a guy at an online dating site. After about six months, we had become very close via the phone, email and text message and were preparing to meet the day after Valentine's Day -- it happened to fall on a Friday that year. As it neared, he asked me for my work address. Excited, thinking he was going to order me some flowers, I quickly called my favorite mail order cookie company and sent him a huge box filled with heart-shaped cookies and other treats.
"When February 14 rolled around, I watched my coworker's roses arrive, one after another. Anxiously I awaited for my special delivery. Would they be in a box or vase? Would they be attached to a balloon or a bear? While lost in a moment, I was 'awakened' by our company mailroom guy. My admirer had sent me a book.
"My heart sank. It wasn't anything remotely romantic... it was some goofy boyish trivia book marketed as "bathroom reading" with an inscription that read, 'You won't believe the things you'll learn from this book. I enjoyed it and now I'm passing it on to you. Happy Valentine's Day!' [But wait! It gets better!]The next year I received a day of beauty and a dozen roses. We're getting married in November."
Grief counselor Elliott says, "I think that for Valentine's Day to be successful, couples need to sit down and talk about how they're going to 'celebrate' it and hear each other's concerns and issues. Some couples choose to forego the flowers and chocolates and just go out to dinner or away for a weekend. They make it about both of them instead of it being a guy giving to a woman."
For those who are single, sometimes the best plan is to just opt out. Skip work that day and treat yourself to something fun. And if you're really hoping for a diamond ring this February, just head on over to the jewellery store and be your own damn Valentine.
