Beyond Reason by Rob Perez

Valentine’s Day didn’t begin as a celebration of your loved one. February 14 started out as a church feast day honoring Saint Valentine, which was not especially romantic. The turn comes in the Middle Ages, when poets like Geoffrey Chaucer began linking the day to choosing a mate rather than simply being assigned one.

At some point in the Middle Ages, some paramour misunderstood the assignment. “What’s great about her?” “Well, she’s sweet.” And instead of writing that down or expressing it to her in some other way (cake?), this lover nodded thoughtfully and returned with something sweet. Back then it was candied fruits, sugar almonds, or, if he was feeling bold, marzipan.

The Victorians took Valentine’s Day to the next level less because they were romantic and more because they were deeply anxious and tried to manage feelings with objects. Uncomfortable expressing emotion directly, they leaned on rituals and tokens that could do the work for them. You didn’t even need to be literate to participate. This is when chocolate arrives as a gift: indulgent, symbolic, and just affordable enough to be meaningful without being reckless. Industrialization made that easier still; love could be boxed, standardized, and, most importantly, purchased.

By the twentieth century, all that remained was scale. Milton Hershey didn’t introduce chocolate as a gesture of love; he standardized it. He made chocolate cheap, dependable, and universally available. Whatever tenderness chocolate once implied was replaced with certainty. You no longer had to wonder what to give. You just had to remember when.

I like to imagine a young woman in this period — uninterested, unmoved, absolutely certain she does not care for this particular suitor — until one day a box of chocolates arrives. And suddenly, everything shifts. Perhaps she had been mistaken. Perhaps he does possess depth. Perhaps attraction had been there all along. Like in this chocolate, buried beneath the thin shell is a soft center. It’s hard to say. What is crystal clear is that chocolate entered the situation, and the situation must now be reconsidered.

Every store I go into — department, grocery, whatever Target is — has a Valentine’s Day section that is roughly 95 percent candy and chocolate. Russel Stover, Lindt, Reece’s, Ghirardelli, See’s, Godiva, and, of course, Hershey.

Candy is not how we used to show love. In ye olde olden days — back when olde had an e on the end of it — what you did was put on your best tights, grab a lute, and plop yourself under her window and remember to use your diaphragm.

Nowadays, you IM someone. Or text. Or perhaps send a GIF. I dunno. But candy? Chocolate? Candy suggests a theory of romance in which affection is not expressed through effort or vulnerability, but unlocked chemically.

I guess it is chemical. I mean, chocolate doesn’t just symbolize affection — it triggers it. Sugar and fat activate the brain’s reward system, releasing dopamine and creating a brief but convincing sense that something good, pleasing, and potentially romantic just occurred.

But after a bit, that dopamine is gone. Which, hopefully, isn’t true of your love. I mean, I hope your love lasts longer than a box of heart-shaped chocolates — especially the way my thirteen-year-old and his friends attack that box intended for someone else. But if you really want something that lasts forever, that’s a different price point. They say diamonds are forever, but that feels like an over-correction. Perhaps a more affordable metaphor for forever is an eternal flame. And since eternal flames are hard to come by, the next best thing is a nice candle.

Just an idea. Happy Valentine’s Day.