The day is now upon us where we are expected to express the most important feelings we have to those who are most important to us.
I asked 10 Santa Cruz experts and sexperts, from professors to counselors to animal rescue workers, “What’s love got to do with it?” I had plenty to choose from. In Santa Cruz, you can’t unroll a yoga mat without hitting a relationship professional. From parents to pets to polyamory, this story presents their wisdom on how to connect through love on Valentine’s Day.
An interspecies tale of the power of love
I asked Amber Rowland, General Manager of the Santa Cruz Animal Shelter (scanimalshelter.org) if dogs get us individually, or do they unconditionally love us because we are their meal ticket? Amber responded with a story about a dog and a man who bonded to save each other.
A couple of years ago the Animal Shelter had a dog named Oreo, a little black and white Shih Tzu, surrendered by his previous owner. He had bitten a couple of people, didn’t like men, and was cranky and got no takers for a home. His groomer gave him some pink hair, a pink tail and a pink Mohawk for Valentine’s Day. In spite of the makeover, nobody would take the grumpy gremlin.
Amber said, “We were trying to give him a second chance. We reached out to our partner shelters to see if anybody would take him. Then we got a call from a man named Richard, from Reno, who saw Oreo’s picture online and asked if he could come meet him.
“We were like, ‘Well, he hasn’t done well with men. His bites never did any damage, but he is kind of snarky.’ But the guy was willing to drive from Reno, saying, ‘I feel this really strong connection to him.’ He drove down, met Oreo, and they instantly clicked. He was totally right. It was one of those things we see in the shelter world, be it magic or chemicals, sometimes pheromones can’t be denied.”
Six months later, Richard called Amber back. It turns out Richard had a terminal health condition and had been given five months to live. But with Oreo, he started exercising every day. Richard dropped 75 pounds, his liver values turned around, and his kidneys started working again. Amber said, “Basically, Oreo brought Richard back to life. They saved each other.”
There is love in the air
You must understand, though the touch of your hand
Makes my pulse react…
We respond completely to pheromones, airborne chemical signals that trigger physiological or behavioral responses. Love is literally in the air. Nailing it down can be like stapling smoke. Scientists call them pheromones. The rest of us call it, “I have no idea why I agreed to brunch, I don’t even like brunch.”
Evolutionary biologist Helen Fisher argues romantic love evolved to promote pair bonding, to focus mating on one individual at a time. Valentines were initially a way for people in the 19th century to negotiate romantic love and the economic reality of marriage. You could marry someone for love, but you still had to marry someone for love who could support you because most middle-class women didn’t work. Romance rocks, but indoor plumbing matters
You are the love of my life?
Oh-oh, what’s love got to do, got to do with it?
What’s love but a second-hand emotion?
Anthropologist/neuroscientist Fisher says love is not an emotion, but a motivational state that directs behavior. Romantic love rewards with short-term rushes of dopamine and isn’t just an emotion you feel, it’s a biological system that makes you pursue, attach, and bond. You have chemistry.Love hijacks your brain and points your intentions at another human being. Most men have experienced when their big head and little head are arguing, the big head is not allowed to speak.
Philosopher and psychologist Carl Jung says what makes us fall in love is our projection of our own anima/us (anima for men, animus for women.) Anima is a man’s unconscious, inner feminine side, and the “soul” or “life force”. Jung’s “projection” is falling in love with your own unconscious image, cast onto someone, making them seem perfect or fated. Jung says we feel a “cosmic” attraction because we are recognizing a lost part of ourselves, our own “unknown face”, coming to meet us. The same mysterious force that convinced a man from Reno to adopt a cranky, pink-mohawked dog.
Jung says that true love is accepting that we were attracted to that projection, and then to see the person through it, and accept their imperfections. He said true love happens when we see the person as a person instead of an empty slate we project onto.
I asked couples therapist Bethany Sala if physical desire was the engine of love or its destruction. “Physical attraction can be a catalyst for developing love,” she answered,“but sometimes it might be certain qualities that a person has that you’re drawn to. Physical desire or passion can feel intoxicating and that might bring you together, but to last there has to be more than just the physical connection of chemistry.”
Valentine’s Day for Kids
At its core, Valentine’s Day is a culturally agreed-upon moment to intentionally express love. There’s now Galetine’s Day (gals celebrating gals), Palentine’s Day (platonic expressions of love), pet Valentines, it can even be about loving yourself. In the beginning, it was about having one Valentine throughout the year and possibly becoming betrothed. When Hallmark was founded in 1910, technology made it possible to produce inexpensive Valentines in color. In the beginning of the 20th century, about the time corporations were invented, Valentine’s Day became part of a movement to turn holidays into opportunities to sell things, and school children were a target.
“Hallmark played a big role in marketing it to elementary students, shifting the focus from having a single, sincere Valentine, to the competitive collecting of the most Valentines,” according to an article published at UNLV.edu called “The Hidden History of Valentine’s Day.”
I asked Santa Cruz couples counselor Mara Alverson what we should be thinking about for kids on Valentine’s Day. She said we try to get kids to the space where they’re loved for who they are.
“Not because you’ve been good, not because you shared your toy, not because you remembered everybody’s name. You are just loved. Just because you exist.”
Who wouldn’t like to get that message from their parents? Hell, I’m ready for about any kind of message from my kids. (You’d think a goddamn call wouldn’t kill them.)
Mara said, “Love is not something you win, it’s something you start with. It starts in the womb. The embryo is aware of a voice quality and certainly emotional states of the mother, which can also depend on emotional states of the father. That embryo is getting the message from the get-go that they are loved and accepted and safe, or not. Sounds, hormones pulsing to the heartbeat, serotonin levels, cortisol levels, everything in the womb determines who you think you are.” So, you can be scared for life, or it can turn you into Elvis.
I interviewed an Elvis Tribute Artist (ETA) named Lloyd, who believes he looks and sounds like Elvis (he does) because “through her pregnancy, mama put phonograph speakers next to her belly and played Elvis round the clock.” Lloyd warned me about other Elvis impersonators.
“There’s crazy guys out there, Richard. There are ETA’s who think they are Elvis. There is only one Elvis!” Then for the next 30 minutes, Lloyd tells me why he is Elvis. He referenced “an old wives’ tale” that he looks like Elvis because “mama kept a picture of Elvis under her pillow when I was in her womb.” (I’m sure it had nothing to do with his mother getting knocked up by a guy who looked like Elvis. Genetics continues to go wildly under-appreciated.)
So, what can Valentine’s Day do for kids? Mara Alverson says, as parents, Valentine’s Day lets you give a gentle annual lesson in love, fairness, candy, economics, and why adults pretend not to notice who got the biggest envelope. By the next morning, Valentine’s Day is over. The cards are crumpled. The candy is gone. The glitter is permanent. But if the day works the way we hope it will, one small idea remains: love is not something you win. It’s something you start with.
What’s money got to do with it?
This weekend Americans are going to gift 250 million pounds of chocolates, the sweetest way to immediately feel worse. Merchants are beating the social media drum to pair our Valentine’s Day passion with proof-of-purchase. Capitalism found a winner here. On February 14, Americans will exchange 145 million cards, somewhere between 40 and 60 million of those valentines are essentially Hallmark’s quarterly earnings statement. The National Retail Federation says we’re going to spend $6.5 billion on jewelry so our feelings can be counted in carats. We will spend $2.5 billion on chocolates. The total take for retailers, dinners, diamonds and all: $27.5 billion. Comes out to $188 per person.
I asked Dr. Tim Hartnett, Executive Director of Shine a Light Counseling Center in Santa Cruz, “If the idea is to connect with love, is Valentine’s Day a good thing?”
Hartnett said, “It can be wonderful when Valentine’s Day reminds us to pay attention to our most important relationships. The difficulty being that many of the reminders about how to show that have been co-opted to get you to buy things. If it puts financial pressure on people to prove that they care sufficiently about another person by buying something, it becomes a test, that is not helpful.”
I spoke with Maggie Collins of Insight Santa Cruz, a Zen Buddhist Meditation Center, to ask her, if love is about connecting, is Valentine’s Day a good or bad thing?
Maggie says it’s mixed. Valentine’s Day reminds us that we should love one another, but when our culture puts freight on top of it, that can be distressing.
“Oh, you didn’t get a Valentine’s card?” Or, “Somebody didn’t ask you to go out to dinner or give you a box of candy?” It can point out the worst of disconnection.
Love Is Being Out
I have two gay buddies who came out of the closet in Santa Cruz.
Due to Santa Cruz housing, they had to move back in.
I asked Rob Darrow, Chair and Executive Director of Santa Cruz Pride, “What is the most important thing about Valentine’s Day for gay people?”
Darrow says that coming out can be the most important way for a gay person to love themselves and subsequently love others. He says lots of people get ostracized for coming out to their families, to their friends, but if that’s who you are, if that’s what you do, just the act of coming out is a reflection of love, in and of itself.
“The act of coming out is an expression of love because you’re being honest with your parents, you’re being honest with your friends, and above all, you’re being honest with yourself. You have to love yourself before you can really love others. That’s probably one of the first acts of love as a queer person, realizing who you are, and then coming out to the people around you.
“Coming out is the ultimate act of love for yourself and for other people in the community. Parents’ reaction to when their kids come out is an expression of love, hopefully, of support for their kids. In some cases, it isn’t. That’s a lost opportunity.”
You can hear Rob Darrow on his Pride Prospectives radio show every other Sunday at 5:00 pm on KSQD-FM (90.7, 89.7, 89.5). To find out more about the radio show, go to SantaCruzPride.org or ksqd.org.
Hookup Culture Has Second Thoughts
I feel like falling in love with the first woman I meet,
putting her in a wheelbarrow and wheeling her down the street.
– Bob Dylan
I spoke with Dr. Phillip Hammack, University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC) Director of the Sexual & Gender Diversity Laboratory, to talk about his work with polyamory, kink/BDSM, asexual relationships, and same-sex relationships.
Polyamory is the practice of having multiple consensual, romantic, and intimate relationships simultaneously, with the full knowledge and agreement of everyone involved, emphasizing open communication, honesty, and ethical management of feelings. I ask Dr. Hammack, “What should someone think about when considering polyamory?”
Hammack says the first thing to ask is if they’re in a relationship. “Sometimes people say, ‘Oh, let’s do this because I don’t want to be in a relationship anymore.’ You do polyamory from a place of security in the relationship.”
Dr. Hammack has studied the creation of dating hookup apps. He found a big rise in the normalcy of hookup culture in the 2010s; the swipe left, swipe right, kind of compulsion people were doing to date.
“There was something really liberating about hookup culture and the rise of apps and people got excited about that. Throughout the 2010s, hookup culture was starting to win. But in the last five years or so there has been a big shift, a backlash. I think people realize what you can lose if you let hook-up culture dominate, and you can really lose that sense of close intimacy, of romance, and sex becomes kind of transactional.” Hammack tracks the popularity of things like the TV show “Love is Blind,” where he sees people fetishizing traditional romance and marriage and monogamy.
“For the past five years or so, people realized that the apps have not all been great. They’re saying, ‘Maybe hook-up culture isn’t this thing we want to be dominant.’ I think for those who are in that space, I think Valentine’s Day is a really important moment to express that, and to say, ‘I want romance, I want to write this romantic storyline with you.’”
He pointed out that polyamory has roots in the Free Love movement of the 60s.
Monogamy is the New Fetish
…and somewhere in Santa Cruz, hippie parents are very confused.
During that glorious experiment of Free Love, after the arrival of the Pill that unlocked sex and marriage, when a woman in our free love Santa Cruz hippie community had multiple partners, she was considered “popular.” It was often casual, sometimes experimental, but always political; it was anti-war. Early hippies took the “Make love, not war” meme seriously. This was not a joke. It was intended to be wild and was, by definition, spontaneous. Jealousy brought it down. Jealousy was dealth with by denying it, like that ever works. The glorious experiment crashed. There was also the problem of, “Whose baby is this, anyway?”
Dr. Hammack tells me the current polyamory scene still rejects monogamy but has added negotiated boundaries. In practice, it’s who can date whom, sexual health protocols, sharing emotional expectation and even time management. In 1968, we embraced spontaneity. In 2026, the polyamorous embrace communication. Maybe the new, polyamorous millennials have solved the jealousy dilemma through communication. What began as a rebellion against rules now has more rules than the Santa Cruz Planning Department. And longer wait times. If Free Love was Santa Cruz’s romantic coming-of-age, polyamory is its middle age with added communication skills. Love can still be free; it’s just scheduled now. Hallmark is developing a card for it: “To all my partners, please see attached Google Calendar.”
I ask Dr. Hammack why Gen Z is having less sex.
“I think as they’re entering adulthood, they’re asking themselves what they really want. Some are saying, ‘I like this kind of romantic ideal of someone that I love to be the beginning of a monogamous relationship and even get married.’ That is sort of the new fetish.”
What To Do on Valentine’s Day?
If you decide to forgo gifts but want to use the day to connect with your loved one, what do you do? All our experts agree that you should talk with your loved one and together come up with something that can only apply to you. Are you film buffs? Find a movie together that will trigger conversations and connections heart to heart.
Counselor Bethany Sala said, “Couples should prioritize time together, do something that feels really enjoyable to both of them. The intangible things that hold them, not the things that you can purchase.”
Maggie Collins said, “‘What are we going to do on Valentine’s Day, baby?’ Great way to start that conversation. Talk about it together instead of trying to figure out the magic formula all on your own.”
Mara Alverson said, “What to do on Valentine’s Day? Almost by definition, it has to be something you arrive at together.”
Tim Hartnell said, “I think the most important thing someone should say to their partner on Valentine’s Day is, ‘What would you like to do together on Valentine’s Day?’ Decide together.”
Here’s something that works for me: sing to your partner. Can’t play an instrument? Acapella is more romantic. Not used to singing? Even better, it’s not about being good, it’s about believing it. Be vulnerable. If you’re a musician, sure, go for it, but if you can’t carry a tune, whisper the words. Own the song. If it moves you, it will move them. No receipt required.
My wife Julie is half Italian and half Chardonnay. She refers to us as Weedo and Wino. Last Valentine’s Day, I sang to her with tears in my eyes. It was not planned, but the pupils of her eyes dilated and the night went very well. The wine tab was minimal. Most affordable Valentine’s Day in history.
