Good day to all of you. I hope you are feeling the warmth of this Valentine’s week. As you may have expected, there was no way I could leave this subject alone.

So here we go: Valentine’s Day.

Being the perpetually single guy that I am, I always have a unique perspective on this holiday of romance.

First of all, what is romance? Moreover, what in the world is romantic? I looked the word romance up in the dictionary, and the entry reads: “a medieval tale of knightly adventure.”

What does that mean?

Another definition states: “to exaggerate or invent detail or incident.”

Ah-ha, I’ve got this one: It means to lie.

Now we, as college students, may or may not classify ourselves as romantics, but I would say that most of us can B.S. about almost anything.

At some point, we have all been forced to lie about something. Maybe it was cancelling a date with that guy two hours before, because you wanted to wash your hair, or maybe it was explaining whom you were dancing with on Friday night.

So going by my definition, anyone who has fibbed in any of these or similar situations is a romantic. There is no need for the French accent, the wine or the shower of rose petals. All you need to do is lie.

This is not to say that chivalry is dead, but think about all of the lies you’ve told to impress members of the opposite sex. Oh, come on, I know you’ve told some lies.

So here we are, right in the middle of Valentine’s week, closing in rapidly on that magic day and all of its hectic splendor.

The malls and flower shops are packed with mindless, love struck shoppers trying to find that perfect gift—the gift that says just what you are feeling.

You could go with the usual 8,000 pounds of chocolate, filled with disgusting slime that screams the words acne, fat grams and diet, or you could go with materialistic love trinkets that end up at the pawn shop when you have that evil break-up.

No matter what you buy, though, you’re going to need a card.

You rifle through the card racks, eyes burning from every different shade of red and pink, trying to find something original but not too weird.

Do you go with humor? How about the cheesy cards with glittering flowers all over them? What about musical cards? And then there are the blank cards that let you embarrass yourself as you try to construct a Shakespearean poem.

(I hope all of you single people are laughing because you do not have to go through this mental torture.)

When all is said and done, you end up lying about how much the gift cost or the amount of time it took to pick it out. Saying things like, “I just saw it and thought of you,” and countless other gushy remarks. Ahh—the true romantic.

But there is a twinge of irony to the week: It’s National Condom Week.

The powers that be must think the cards, the flowers and all of the other gifts will do their assigned jobs.

It’s a crazy world!

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J.R. Grant is a junior in journalism and mass communication from somewhere in Ohio.