Valentine’s Day as we know it now is very bittersweet: Sweet if you’ve got a generous crush/love and/or lots of friends to shower you with gifts, cards, emails, tweets, flowers, and candy, until you’re swimming in red and pink colored flattery. It’s also sweet if you’re a pop star who spends Valentine’s Day with a dying fan.

But it’s also very bitter, for those who think it’s just another cynical holiday meant to sell candy and cards, and of course, if you’re not linked up to anyone romantically during this time, it just seems like everyone who is is just rubbing it in your face. That girl at work that keeps getting flowers delivered. That kid at school with ALL the candygrams. Your best friend/sister/mortal enemy and her reservations at the poshest spot in town with her fiance (who’s in finance, looks like George Clooney, and loves puppies.) Really, it’s kind of sadistic when you think about it.

So, how did this wretched/wonderful holiday come about? It turns out the history of Valentine’s day is even more brutal than finding an empty Valentine’s cubby in elementary school.