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Have we Fallen Out of Love with Valentine's Day? · Mark and Pete

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  Have we fallen out of love with Valentine's Day?
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  Welcome to Mark and Pete. Yes, today we're thinking about
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  Valentine's Day and we're asking this question, are we still
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  capable of love or have we replaced it with algorithms and
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  emotional cowardice? Yes, with this is Mark and Pete,
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  two blokes with half an opinion. Now here's our first thought.
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  The eternal love triangle when romance becomes hard to find.
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  Don't be sad or sensitively sigh, just swoon to where love
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  is blind and for for me, myself and I.
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  Yes. If nobody's going to fall in
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  love with you, fall in love with yourself, why not send yourself
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  a little little card or maybe a single rose?
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  Mr. Pete, I would say that in my opinion, when it comes to
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  Valentine's Day, maybe we're sort of falling out of love with
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  this particular occasion. What say you about this?
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  I've got my thoughts, but I'd be keen to get your.
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  Perspective. Yeah.
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  Well, I think that you're right. This is just an observable fact.
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  It used to be the Valentine's Day stuff was everywhere.
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  Yeah, it was great for the card industry and I guess for
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  restaurants and such like, because Valentine's Day was big.
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  When you and I were little boys at school, the we found that
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  there there was a sort of box put there in the school same the
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  same as at Christmas for for Christmas cards for people to
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  exchange Valentine's cards. With.
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  Each other at school and so it was just it just took over.
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  I mean the number you must have cars you must have sent to
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  yourself Mark, because there can't be any other reason for
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  you receiving them. But you know, the the this is
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  this has has gradually died out a little bit.
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  I don't think it's you know, it's St.
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  Valentine. I don't think it's to do with
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  anything that's anti religious because it's not really much to
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  do with the real St. Valentine anyway.
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  So I don't, I don't see that that it's that connection.
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  It's it's something to do with a, a growing cynicism towards
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  such performative acts of romance.
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  That's what I think, yes. Well, I can understand now just
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  to sort of qualify that as is no surprise that I get many
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  complaints from the Postal Service because the post workers
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  always are have back breaking work just just trying to get
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  their Valentine's cards to me. Now I do apologise, but that's
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  the way of the world folks. But All in all seriousness, yes,
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  I think that we have fallen out of love of the actual season.
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  And I think in some ways it is a little bit reflective of the
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  economy, the state of the nation.
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  I do think also that maybe people find that it's it's
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  expensive, but actually really is it really getting to what
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  people want? Now, the idea that you would
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  maybe send an anonymous card is is mildly amusing, But I think
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  when it comes to, you know, a gesture to your loved one, it
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  shouldn't really be just simply to one day in the year, should
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  it? It shouldn't be throughout the
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  whole year. So in some ways you could sort
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  of argue, well, you know, you know, with the the High Street,
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  you know, diminishing and maybe some not so many, you know, card
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  companies around, I know you can buy them online, but maybe
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  people have just chosen to sort of fall in love in different
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  ways. Now, you mentioned something
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  which I thought was really a big challenge to this, which is
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  around the online type of dating.
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  A lot of people do have, there is a peak, interestingly, of not
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  so much on the purchasing of cards, but the uplift of those
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  who tend to go on apps, those dating apps and those who may
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  want to sort of go out with somebody at, you know, on the
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  February. Valentine's Day is, is something
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  that you know, you, you shouldn't discourage.
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  But I, I, I personally feel that maybe we should sort of rethink
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  the event. Do you think that maybe
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  Valentine's Day should be more than one day in the year?
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  Because if you want to sort of get to know somebody, surely it
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  shouldn't just be at the February period.
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  It should be at all times in the year.
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  Maybe we should have a Valentine's Day every month.
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  Why not? What do you think?
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  Yeah, there may be something in that.
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  Yeah. And it could be a slightly
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  different. I'm trying.
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  To boost the retail side here. Yeah, different types.
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  Yes, I think. Yeah, I think there could be
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  something in that because I think we need to rekindle.
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  This is what I think, Mark. I know that it's not normally
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  that sort this that sort of show that we have run here, but I
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  think let's just talk about sex. People wouldn't to be having sex
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  with each other. It's about the an instruction
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  from Mark and Pete. If you, if someone else, why did
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  you have sex? Say, look, I listened to this
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  podcast and they told me to do it.
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  And that's absolutely true. We need, particularly in Western
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  countries where there's population decline, we need to
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  get at it. We need to start producing
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  children. Now.
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  I, I've got an actual study on this.
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  There's an excellent journal which I, I hope they will all
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  subscribe to called the Journal of Sex.
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  It did a study, quite a widespread study on sexual
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  activities in young adults up up to up to up to 2019 and found a
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  huge decline in sexual activity, especially for men.
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  And a more recent analysis, this is 24, found that this is from
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  the US, not from Britain. Sexual activity amongst US
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  adults aimed aged 18 to 64. So Mark, we're both in that age,
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  age, age foul from 55% in 1990 to 37% in 2024.
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  What I'm saying is part of the reason for Valentine's is to
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  have sex. I mean, I mean, obviously I'm
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  talking about when you've fallen in love and had a romance and
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  courting and got married. Obviously that's what I'm
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  meaning. But people are just aren't doing
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  it. They people in the parlance just
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  aren't doing it. And we need now there are
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  various reasons for that, which you which is, I suppose, the
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  prevalence of pornography, people getting a fix from that
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  people getting, you know, persuaded that you that other
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  things are better than sex, especially for men, because
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  actual sex with a woman. I mean, because of it's so
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  complicated. And if things fall foul, it's
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  the man that gets hammered with alimony and that sort of thing.
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  So why certainly why get married?
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  Whatever those are a couple of the reasons to the put forward.
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  But whatever the reasons, we need to be having more sex.
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  So yeah, I, I agree with you that some sort of Valentine's
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  promotion and not in a cynical sense.
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  I don't mean just sexual activity, of course.
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  I mean full romance, falling in love, married, creating a home
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  together. That's what I mean by sex,
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  proper sex where it's within a loving, a loving relationship
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  and it's going to be in most cases, producing children.
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  It's a family, it's a binding activity.
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  And yet we're not doing it. So Valentine's Day seems a bit
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  pointless if that's not your aim.
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  Well, let me take it in a slightly different direction,
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  which is something more commercial, but it does sort of
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  relate to bringing people together to get to know one
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  another and promoting the principle of romance.
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  Now a bookshop that claims to be the largest in Europe,
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  specialising in adult only romance novels.
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  And this is called the Spicy Librarian and it's it's actually
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  based in Leamington Spa. But the principle of this is it
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  has romance genres which bring people together.
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  The idea is that it's a safe place for people to read and
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  relax about, you know, sort of romance and getting to know one
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  another. Now this comes back to my idea.
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  Well, this is great. What else can you do?
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  Well, the idea behind the store as well is that you can hold
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  events so effectively people can come and meet, yes.
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  So maybe the principle of Valentine's Day couldn't be just
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  that. It's just one, you know,
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  anonymous card that happens to come in from Mr. Pete.
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  Yeah. Although he won't admit that,
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  but he, he does it quite a lot. But the fact is, is that that
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  might be a good way. So it's effectively that you
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  have all these different shops and events all around the, the,
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  the country, all the world, folks, yes, let's spread love
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  wherever we can because, you know, it is true that we seem to
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  be falling out of love with one another and, and we need
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  something a little bit more positive.
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  So what say you about the idea of sort of spicing up romance on
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  the High Street in in the books and.
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  And I think spicing up romance, Yeah.
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  And getting some. Yeah.
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  And getting getting romance back in the in the consciousness in.
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  I mean, even romantic films aren't as romantic as before.
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  You see, when I said it's important that you get it, be
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  getting mind. Sex is not the mechanical act.
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  That's part of it. It's not the physical act.
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  I don't know why I said mechanical.
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  That's an entirely different story.
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  It's not the physical act that's part of it.
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  It's all the the romance, the Valentine's Day romance.
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  So if it's replaced with something that's sordid or
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  demeaning, which is it? Which for which read the
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  Hollywood depiction of sex is then amplified in in media and
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  social media. Then you're going to have a a
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  weaker view of sex. Yeah, let's get the romance.
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  Let's get it spicy. Let's get it.
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  Let's get it so that people fall in love with each other again.
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  Now in the Bible it's interesting.
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  This is one of the signs that that things are falling apart
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  what people sometimes call the end times.
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  I like to think of it more in terms of the breakdown of
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  society and and civilization. Second Timothy 3 verses 1 to 4
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  has this little piece about this where it says people will become
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  lovers of themselves without natural affection, and we need
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  to reverse that or yeah, we're heading into a steady decline,
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  if not worse. Well, I agree.
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  So listeners, if for some reason that maybe you haven't received
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  your card, maybe you're feeling that you're not loved, possibly
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  it is, is that you're looking for opportunities to meet
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  people. Well, the one thing that we can
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  safely say, whatever it is Valentine's Day or throughout
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  the year, everyone loves the Marc and Pete show.
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  Amen.