If you check Twitter, Facebook, your email, a dating site, an adult film store, or your local big box retailer, you’ll find aisles upon aisles dedicated to Valentine’s Day goodness. It’s a big deal, and great for the service industry (as you can take our your misery or happiness on happy hour)!

Why is Valentine’s Day so important? Why is there one day focused on showing affection to your spouse, or picking up another single person at the local “Stoplight” party? Why is Target only selling pink, red and white M&Ms? Did Kobe and Shaq kiss and make up two nights ago so they wouldn’t have to go out together tonight?

Valentine’s Day is a holiday that’s grown in popularity over the past 50 years, and in terms of retail holiness for Jews, might be entering Hanukkah territory (admit it, when have you ever seen a Rosh Hashanah movie on TV?). On a national scale, it ranks up there with Christmas, New Year’s, Halloween, and July 4^th as the most Instagrammed holiday of the year… per statistics that I made up.

With this increased importance, is it time for us to replace Columbus Day as a national holiday with Valentine’s Day instead? If someone recently suffered a break up, and their depression is too much to stomach at work, shouldn’t they be granted a Valentine’s Day off to watch timeless romantic classics like Love Actually, When Harry Met Sally and Space Jam? On the other hand, shouldn’t the government grant us an “Intimacy Day” due to the fact that we have a “demographic cliff” problem in the USA, as the birthrate is declining?

Think of the impacts this could have. Singles, married people, and people in all other types of relationships will be able to fully recover from their depression/euphoria/taking a hit to their bank account by having a day off from work and will come in fully rested and ready to work on February 15 — excited that their next day off is President’s Day in just a few days.

My main contact with the outside world? Spam. And it’s weirdly personal too. How do they know so much about me? ANDY… WANT TO ENLARGE YOUR EGO? I got that the other day.

ANDY… FIND YOUR MUCH, MUCH BETTER HALF! … Is it just me, or was that a slam?

ANDY, SOMEONE WANTS TO DATE YOU! What’s with the exclamation point? I guess even they can’t believe someone wants to date me.

So I figured, what the heck. It wasn’t 100hookup, but if they’re excited about somebody wanting to date me, I can at least show a little excitement too. I hit the URL they’d sent me, and it took me to a site that asked… LOOKING FOR LOVE? 3.5 MILLION SINGLES AWAIT YOU ARRIVAL AT DREAMMATES.COM! “You” arrival. 3.5 million and not one of ‘em can spell “your.”

Now, they’re telling me 3.5 million singles await my arrival. Right away, you figure half of those 3.5 million awaiting my arrival are the wrong sex. That would be men, by the way! So they’re telling me 1 & ¾ million guys are awaiting my arrival? How great can the women be if hundreds of thousands of guys are awaiting my arrival? 100hookup – I’ll never look at another dating site again.

New data is out and it puts the odds in your favor:
-87 million. That’s the number of singles in the United States.**
-40 million. That’s the number of singles that have tried online dating sites.**

**US Census Bureau 2011

Try to wrap your head around that number – forty million. That’s a lot of people! Granted, Jews only make up about two percent of the U.S. population… but still, that’s still a huge number!

It’s my people watching skills that have left me baffled about the numbers game. The guys I saw on 100hookup were not the same guys at the single’s events or volunteering with hookup Family Services. I would randomly meet Jews I had never before seen or met at bars whom had never been to a hookup event! That means those people were not upping their odds because they weren’t as involved as they could be. It was better for me because I was doing it all and was meeting them all, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find that many of those people are still single today because they’re just not doing everything possible. Of course, I met my husband at a random bar after agreeing last minute to go with a friend to a birthday party while I was vacationing in Tel Aviv, so my theory proved itself.

You HAVE to be proactive! I’m a living, walking, breathing example of how increasing your odds does work! I’ve heard all the excuses – you’re tired, you’re busy, you’re frustrated with being single and fed up with seeing the same faces over and over again. The first two are tossaways, but the last excuse gets me every time — remember, it only takes one new face!

I was sitting at a dinner party the other night when word got around that I write about dating.  Suddenly all of the hostess’ girlfriends wanted advice from me, who they now called the “hookup Carrie Bradshaw.” Flattered, I felt an obligation to try and help these single women in their early 20’s. As an “older” woman (nearly 30… they probably considered me ancient), I had an obligation to impart some wisdom.

My first question: “are you on 100hookup?” elicited one unusual response:  a guttural sound emanated from Danielle’s throat while her face distorted into a look of disgust.  While the corners of her lips turned down with her upper lip peaked into a snarl, her eyes became slits and her jaw tensed up. She finally recovered from her bout with repulsion and simply said, “ew.” And I could tell she was starting to doubt her opinion of me as the cool, older sister-type.

As for me, I couldn’t help but start laughing.  I remembered I used to think the same way when I was her age. But still I eventually did sign up for a 100hookup membership where I found dozens upon dozens of eligible bachelors and was happily surprised to know I was in good (and good-looking) company.

I told Danielle that I too had preconceived notions about 100hookup, but found it to be a place where ALL Jews go to look for their beshert.  By signing up on 100hookup, there would be hundreds of thousands of single hookup men from around the world literally at her fingertips. She could narrow them down at her behest, whether by area, age, or however her critical heart desires.

As the 100hookup conversation continued most of the other people at the dinner party, guys and gals alike, all proudly stated that they too were on 100hookup. Danielle quickly became the odd woman out and I could tell she was even excited to sign up. She had discovered that 100hookup is not the place where desperate people go but rather where the “cool” people are.

*all names have been changed