Valentine’s Day has been a holiday for more than a millennium, dating back to 270 CE, according to Britannica. The common theory is that it started as a holiday from a few Christian martyrs with various stories all involving letters and an association with love. However, commercialism has turned the holiday into the manipulation of couples buying expensive gifts for their significant other, simply because it’s Valentine’s Day.

“Total spending is expected to be $20.7 billion, which is an increase of 5.6 percent over last year’s $19.6 billion and breaks the previous record of $19.7 billion, also set in 2016,” according to the National Retail Federation.

That is an exceptional amount of money being spent on gifts for a holiday that’s essentially dedicated as a day to spoil and recognize people’s love for their significant others. The average consumer will spend $161.96. That’s just a ridiculous amount of money to spend on someone simply because corporations tell you it’s necessary. Valentine’s Day is the fifth most expensive holiday, according to a 2018 graphics analysis by Graphic Maps.

Getting nice gifts, a fancy dinner, chocolates, jewelry, clothes, etc., is nice and all, but it shouldn’t be the main focus of your Valentine’s Day. It was a holiday intended back in the Common Era, or Christian Era, to express one’s love for each other in ways that didn’t concern corporations or expensive spending.

Valentine’s Day has turned into a corporate agenda to exploit our need for romantic validation rather than a valuable expression of love from one person to another. We’ve become a society obsessed with the idea that spending an absurd amount of money is the only way to show how much we care for someone.