interesting facts about Valentine's Day and other stuff :)

[babs609]

To me, Valentine's Day is just another marketing tool.  But....still..if it means people are stopping to smell the roses and spread a little love in your life...then I'm all for it.  Can't go wrong with love.   :wub:  ...every day should be Valentine's day IMHO

 

Here's some cool facts I didn't know and thought to share

 

62% OF CONSUMERS CELEBRATE VALENTINE’S DAY AROUND 200 MILLION ROSES ARE PRODUCED FOR VALENTINE’S DAY

 

85% OF VALENTINE’S DAY CARDS ARE PURCHASED BY WOMEN 73% OF VALENTINE’S FLOWERS ARE PURCHASED BY MEN

 

53% OF WOMEN WOULD END THEIR RELATIONSHIP IF THEY DID NOT RECEIVE A PRESENT ON VALENTINE’S DAY!  (seriously????  now that's just an EMBARRASSMENT to my gender.)

 

and a bit of history

 

• Valentine’s Day started with the Romans. St Valentine defied Emperor Cladius II’s ban on young men marrying, and performed secret marriages. For his disobedience, Valentine was executed on 14^th February.
• “Wearing your heart on your sleeve” goes further than a heart-warming phrase. In the Middle Ages, young men and women drew names to see who their Valentine would be. They would then wear this name pinned to their sleeve for one week to publicise their ‘true’ feelings.
• Richard Cadbury introduced the first Valentine’s Day box of chocolates in 1868: 146 years of gooey, chocolatey goodness!

and one more

 

We knew that chocolate was pretty powerful but we had no idea how much docotors believed in it. Physicians in the 1800s used to prescribe patients a dose of chocolate to cure the pangs of lost love.

 

[babs609]

found another

 

Love can make us obsessed, literally

There's a reason you can't stop thinking about that special new guy or girl in your life: MRI scans have shown that falling in love sends blood rushing to the "pleasure center" areas of the brain -- the same areas that are responsible for obsessive-compulsive behaviors. Falling in love also lowers serotonin levels, which is common in people with obsessive-compulsive disorders, says Mary Lynn, DO, co-director of the Loyola Sexual Wellness Clinic at Loyola University in Chicago. "This may explain why we concentrate on little other than our partner during the early stages of a relationship," she says, and also why we tend to idealize new partners and turn a blind eye to their faults. 

[babs609]

too funny!  

 

[babs609]

LOL!

 

[Jenny]

 

 

We knew that chocolate was pretty powerful but we had no idea how much docotors believed in it. Physicians in the 1800s used to prescribe patients a dose of chocolate to cure the pangs of lost love.

Now there's a bit of medical advice I don't mind taking.  :)

[bakon]

I am calling bs on the card facts....

[robf]

That's actually a bunch of myth and legend surrounding the origins of valentines, Pagans have a good one about sacrificing a goat, soaking it's hide in it's blood and the children would whip it on crops and women for fertility. The Roman preacher marrying the troops is a classic (Roman troops weren't allowed to be married hence the secret ceremonies). There's another one about a someone being in prison too, can't remember that one...

 

The long and short of it though is that it's all bollocks designed to make men feel guilty about not being romantic and therefore forced into buying pointless crap at inflated prices on a specific day.

 

The solution is to pick a day that suits you as a couple, over here, February is cold wet and windy, we have our valentines day in the summer, offload the child with a willing volunteer and go for a picnic.

[deltawings]

too funny!  

 

 

This is awesome :D