Well, Berkeley, pink is in the air. But actually. Light rain and fair weather have coaxed out the cherry blossoms on Sproul. And, once again, America has got strawberry on the brain.

Valentine’s Day slips itself shyly into the exact middle of the least-relevant month of the year. Holiday reunions went sour. New Year’s resolutions have failed. Midterms are looming, as are the stormy buildings that will host them. Welcome to February. Seventh circle of hell.

It’s because of this bleakness that I stand up and confess – I’m pro-Valentine’s Day. American counter-culture can have its beef with this goofy, tawdry, trite, wasteful, mushy, idle holiday. I’ll be singing 1950s love songs and wearing a pink scarf. There’s precious little love in the world without hating on the old V-day.

But in case you’re a stranger in the cherry buttercream quagmire between “bah humbug” and “Be mine,” let me take on some of the worst grievances of which Valentine’s day is accused.

This so-called “Hallmark Holiday” loses many admirers because it propagates extravagant consumerism. Although the origins of Valentine’s Day date back to the Middle Ages, I have talked to countless people who insist that corporate greeting card companies invented this gimmick to con millions of dollars out of a society desperate for love .

All I can say is maybe advertising overemphasized the importance of this holiday relative to, say, Earth Day. Fine. I can accept that materialism blew Valentine’s Day into the elaborate affair we have today.

But I also believe that some of the most beautiful things in this world also had their origins in greed. History’s greatest architects, artists and musicians turned out their best work on commission. Great authors wrote to escape penury. Investment determines what the cutting edge of science cuts into. Even little kids with their lemonade stands in July demonstrate how a desire for profit can bring some joy to the world.

And I adamantly believe that if anything born in the stench of sweaty coins can ever transcend avarice, love can. Maybe we started celebrating Valentine’s day because our corporate culture has socialized us to demand Sweetheart candies every 14th of February, but that’s not to say the holiday lacks all substance.

Valentine’s Day reminds us to hold the door for some stick-up-the-ass professor in Doe or to offer a Subway sandwich to one of Telegraph’s many homeless. It is the ultimate “Call Your Grandmother” post-it, the Kiss Cam of the universe.

Now, some haters will admit that yes, love and friendship have been known to cause some pleasant effects on society from time to time. Next they will say it insults our society that we confine love to a 24-hour window in the dead of winter. We need to act with compassion all day e’ry day.

Unfortunately, no one thinks that broadly all the time and we tend to misplace those higher ideals. Even the best of us have forgotten our general goodwill in the two-hundred yards of violated privacy between Bancroft and Sather Gate. An annual prod back in the direction of humanity serves an important role in our goal-oriented society and makes a great excuse to enjoy a few appropriately-colored M&Ms along the way.

For some other parade-rainers, the mention of candy might have dredged up recollections of bygone elementary school trauma, the tragedy of unrequited love, the devastation of getting fewer candy grams than Prissie Popularpoulis. Valentine’s Day teaches us to feel incomplete without a significant other in our lives, they will say. It shames the singles, it caters directly to our sexual insecurities.

Yes and no. A lot of people out there are dreaming of a checkerboard tablecloth, some Merlot, and a dwindling candle, and reality will disappoint many of them. I am going stag this Valentine’s Day, too. But I will relish the company of my good friends, I will chat with my parents, I will think of my sisters. I will buy myself a hot chocolate and as I drink it, I will stare into my reflection in the window of Caffe Strada and say, “You are beautiful, and one hot chocolate will not change that.”

I will also admit, and this is one of the few times during the year that I will bare my soul enough to admit it, that as much as I will enjoy my friends’ company, I want to spend Valentine’s Day with someone special. I want love, romantic love, sexual, adventurous, fairy-tale love. And even if I feel a little heartbroken or lonely, I am still going to want love. And I am going to open myself to finding love, despite my insecurities and fears. There is nothing wrong with crossing your fingers for next year.

Alright. We’ve tackled the materialism of Valentine’s Day, the limited scope, and the overly-romantic hype. But a sufficiently large lollipop will silence most of these intellectual quips. The real complaint lodged inside us is this:

Valentine’s Day is cheesy.

We instinctively despise the belief that balloons and chocolate will make it right, that in the same way YOLO justifies careless self-abuse, “Valentine’s Day” justifies reckless, kitschy imitations of love.

All things cheesy and corny and otherwise fit for Granny’s tuna casserole generally have a grain of truth to them. What’s so bad about “Treat others like you want to be treated” other than the echoes of your first-grade teacher’s nasal intonations? And “Live in the moment” makes a legitimate point. We don’t know what to make of “Love conquers all,” except that we want it to be true.

But when people don’t understand these concepts – and I mean, don’t connect and engage these ideas as part of a broader effort to live well, full and happy – and parrot them out of a blind faith in the words Disney spoon-fed them as children, parrot them without comprehension, parrot them to lend legitimacy to their poor choices, parrot them to add wisdom where creativity is lacking…then once-valuable concepts turn pedestrian and cliche.

And every year, it will happen. Clinging desperately to media-circulated norms and traditions, lace-clad pilgrims will flock on pilgrimage to gimcrack Vegas chapels and in the oily glow of Cupid’s smile, pledge themselves to three months of wedded bliss and a Springsteen-ever-after. And the women will wear something borrowed and something blue, and the men will grope after embroidered girdles, and there will be tooth-sealing coconut cake and champagne bought at BevMo. Uncle Murfy’s butt crack will sneak up over his black leather pants when he ties cans to the back of a jalopy that manages to outdo the newlyweds in its unpreparedness for the road ahead.

I guess some people, seeking love, get caught chasing booze, buzz, and cheap thrills, and their faith in Valentine’s Day cheapens the whole enterprise. They are so ready to believe “love conquers all” that they never stop to evaluate the things they do in the name of love. They take it all on faith, a faith that is so often misplaced and ultimately disappointed.

The greatest challenge for me is distinguishing “cheesy” from “stupid.” I mean, we are Cal students, the creme de la creme! Smarter than the average bear! To join with the unwashed masses in any project would insult our intelligence and sully our reputation! Save the red balloons for our Marxist revolution!

We reject Valentine’s Day as cheesy for the same reason we go 364 days without telling our friends and families and partners “I love you.” We don’t want to jeopardize our pride, to build up our hopes and watch them deflate like a one-time heart balloon. We think we’re too smart to believe in a holiday that has captured the imagination of so many young, naive lovebirds.

It’s terrifying and true that love makes us fools. But I’m rooting for that wide-eyed couple burning rubber into a desert horizon. They’re stupid and silly and their brains as stiff as their treated hair, but it’s also sweet, and there’s a reason we sing Springsteen when we go driving. Even fools get the real point of Valentine’s Day…

(wait for it…)

…“To love is to be vulnerable.”

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