Singles Awareness Day

Today is Valentine's day, in case you didn't know this already. Being the single guy that I am, meaning I am not out on a fancy date tonight, I decided to check out the mythologies behind Valentine's day. It started as a holiday to celebrate the Christian Martyr Saint Valentine in 496 AD and was created by Pope Gelasius I. Saint Valentine is not just one guy, apparently many martyrs back in the day were named Valentine. The original holiday was not even about love like it is today, it was simply to celebrate a martyr.
This is all very interesting, but I decided to get more mythological when researching it. The obvious choice here is Cupid.

Cupid is the son of Venus and Mars. He is perceived today as a cute, slightly chubby angel that shoots people with his magic arrows and makes them fall in love. However, I found out something new. In the stories, Cupid was said to carry two arrows, one with a gold tip and one with a lead tip. The gold tip made the recipient fall in love with the next person he or she laid eyes on. The lead tip invoked hatred in the recipient. Apparently, Cupid was a mischievous little bugger and he would shoot one person with the gold tip, and whoever they fell in love with received the lead tip arrow. The creates quite the conundrum. Doesn't it always seem like you go for the person who doesn't want anything to do with you, or the person you can't have? Or is that just me? At least Cupid is keeping love interesting. If you think about it, Cupid is just making sure business stays good. If everyone fell in love and the world was "perfect", he would have no one left to shoot.