If there's such thing as gravity in the holiday, then I never understood it.
A vast majority of my life (say, 22 years of it), I have always believed it to be a light-hearted day for everyone-- whether you're in a relationship or not. All the loneliness or sadness singledom has ever brought me was therefore never especially highlighted on Valentine's Day.
Personally, extravagance and inordinate dinners or gifts are saved, if at all, for birthdays; a day to truly commemorate and appreciate the existence of a human being. And if everybody has a day to be commemorated and appreciated as a human being, then is it necessary to have another day to commemorate and appreciate a human being specifically for being a lover?
This logic made sense to me because I never had to celebrate Valentine's Day. Ergo, for whatever kind of significance it should be, there was none to be found in my 22 years of life. Not to mention that I'm not much of an on-occasion gift giver. My family and I stopped giving birthday and Christmas gifts to each other at a young age. I see little importance in gift-giving on holidays, as opposed to, let's say, giving or receiving a surprise phone call or message (and maybe a modest gift) on a day you or I am feeling particularly upset by something. It doesn't mean that I don't care about someone, it just means that I think we can do better than this, economically.
But now being in the third year celebrating Valentine's Day, I cannot simply overlook this holiday anymore. I'm learning that there is much more in the rationale or desire to give rather than the simple material aspect of it (like in the unfortunate form of an abysmal silver charm bracelet with expensive price tag, for example).
Any gift-giving holiday is meant to enable you to think more about the people you love, and ultimately allowing that day to be the perfect time to give or say something to illustrate that love. I suppose that's why holidays exist-- to acknowledge an otherwise taken-for-granted person in your life or event in history.
