It’s hard to argue against a holiday  that celebrates love. The world – all  the countries we’ve declared hostile  and ours as well – could use a lot more  of it. Unfortunately, Valentine’s  Day isn’t at all about creating  world peace – or even always  about love.

It’s about money. Obscene amounts of money.

To celebrate this almost made-up holiday, U.S. consumers spend more than $13.5  billion each year to say they love/like/heart their spouse, significant  other, children, best friends, parents, boss, teachers, pets and an entire segment of service industry employees who put together huge “pampering packages” designed to elicit big tips.

You can thank (or blame) Esther Howland for popularizing Valentine’s Day greeting cards in the mid 19th century.” The mother of the American Valentine,” as she is known, convinced her father, who operated the largest book and stationery store in Worcester, Mass., to import lace and paper so she could duplicate the lavish card she had received from a friend overseas.

How could she have known that her business acumen might contribute to such heartbreak more than a century later? Who doesn’t remember with nostalgia, you ask, the lace, ribbons, buttons and other treasures salvaged from Mother’s sewing basket and festooned on the Valentine boxes arranged in the front of the grammar school classroom to make it look like a post office? My third-grade classmate Winona, that’s who.

She received few cards in her Valentine’s  Day box, and those she did get were from the bottom of the 32-pack, the ones that proved the limits of the author’s wit and creativity.Winona was bullied routinely, but Valentine’s Day was particularly cruel.Third grade is the last year that I remember participating in this ritual. A teacher who saw Winona’s nearly empty box said she’d have no more part in it. She sent Winona and the nicest girl in class to the real post office and delivered a lecture to the rest of us that is withering even today.

Criticizing Valentine’s Day is nearly as  perilous as flag-burning. Both are free-speech issues, and the only way an anti-Valentine’s Day spiel is going to look good is if it is delivered by someone  standing beside a flag-burner. Inevitably, the Valentine’s Day critic’s remarks will be qualified as the rant of someone  passed over on the big day. My abhorring Valentine’s Day and not having a date for it are coincidence, I promise.

But those of us who are not part of a “we” are acutely aware of our “single-hood”on Valentine’s Day. A few years ago, I was alone in a hotel in a strange town on business and I ventured to the hotel restaurant, completely forgetting that it was Feb. 14, and the whole world, or so it seemed, had turned red and pink. Normally, dining alone doesn’t bother me, but on this night for lovers, I wanted to slink back to my room and order room service before anyone noticed me. It could have  been my imagination, but the server seemed particularly patronizing.

“Are we alone tonight?” he asked.

I resisted the urge to reply,”Do you see a we here?” Normal sarcasm on any other day, but on Valentine’s Day, it sounds defensive.

I wished that I had brought my friend  Josh along. That poor guy was suffering  from hives because his then-girlfriend  pressured him for months and finally  said that if he couldn’t come up with  something more imaginative than a bouquet  of 100 purple roses express shipped to Iowa the same day they were hand-picked by Ecuadorian growers, she would trade up. These were not ordinary long-stemmed red roses, mind you, but purple roses just the right hue to bring out the violet in her eyes.

I told Josh I hoped she got a bouquet  of ragweed instead. I meant it. Fervently.  Valentine’s Day has that effect.