You see it in Walgreens in their holiday aisle: the red boxes of chocolate and the teddy bears. You see it in the movie listings: that higher than normal percentage of sappy chick flicks. Yes, what you see is that mack truck of a commercial holiday headed straight for us this Thursday: Valentine's Day. It's hard to think of another holiday that inspires quite so divided an opinion.

Unlike some holidays that are meant to provoke certain feelings, like patriotism on the Fourth of July (except amongst Democrats) or inebriation on St. Paddy's Day, Valentine's Day means different things to different people.

For singles, the holiday often passes without notice, just another Hallmark-invented holiday that can be ignored. This is particularly true for guys. If you are single and loving it, then not going out on Valentine's Day is just a way to save up money you can spend later on the weekends trying to sweet talk another cute girl.

This hardly sums up all single people though. For the recently single, the holiday is usually one of two things. For those coming out of what was overall a good relationship, the day tends to be very depressing, reminding you of what you used to have but now don't. This doesn't mean these people won't be without a date though; Edy's and H