English is a language bereft of an adequate expression for an intense emotion such as love. We have one word that expresses our love for chocolate and our love for family, friends and intimate partners. The Greeks had four words: storge, for familial affection; eros, for sensual love; philo, for strong affinity/preference for, as in philosophy, love of wisdom; and agape, for selfless love. Sometimes, these various loves manifest themselves in different ways, particularly around Valentine’s Day.

Eros rears its head in beautiful chocolates, candies and flowers, all things that appeal to the senses. In my family, storge appears when I receive my annual card from “a secret admirer” - my mother. Philo may arrive in a general sense as love for our friends as we ply them with good wishes and goodies.

But rarely will agape, that selfless love, arrive in schools or our lives. Except in one instance when I remember reading a story about an elementary teacher who carefully made Valentines for her students. She took particular care with those who she knew would be excluded from the general mayhem of the magical few receiving Valentines from classmates. She made sure that no one would recognize her writing and signed them “from a secret friend.”

For years I’ve thought abut this story and its implications. I remember being in elementary school watching in equal parts of hurt and envy at the clusters of girls who received many Valentine’s Day cards from the boys in the class or even from other girls. I was lucky that I had a coterie of friends, albeit a small group, and we exchanged cards, too. But we knew there would be the inevitable questions from the other girls in the class: “So, how many cards did you get?” I had learned to master the words of evasion, “Oh, quite a few,” I would say, knowing full well this was only a check and compare mission, and “a few” was vague enough and at the same time gave the message of “not many.” I was safe from being probed for actual numbers, though often the questioner would often brag, “Well I got...” and fill in some double-digit number.

I’ve never understood this kind of competition. It has always boggled my mind and yet I’ve also always felt a twinge of envy - wanting to be that person who received the most Valentines, as though that would somehow prove my worth. It was only later in life that I came to understand that the girls who bragged about how many Valentines they received had an overwhelming need to feel special. For them, receiving many cards was a clear indication of self worth and, somehow, my few cards, simply showed that I wasn’t as special as they were.

And so the competition for who received the most Valentines, the most Christmas cards, the most of anything continued through elementary school. I know the competition continues to this day, though to a lesser extent in high school.

For isolated students, Valentine’s Day merely reinforces their feelings of isolation and disconnectedness from others. They sit quietly, masking their hurt.

In an episode of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, the most popular girl in school, Cordelia, talks about being alone, feeling lonely. It was better to feel alone in a group than to feel alone by herself. And like Cordelia, the plethora of cards allayed the feelings of loneliness for the girls in elementary school.

Valentine’s is supposed to be about love. Perhaps it is time to shift from one form of love to another. Maybe it’s time to give a Valentine to someone who doesn’t normally receive them.

Brenda McNeill is an English and writing teacher at Pinetree secondary school in Coquitlam. Her column appears every other Wednesday. Names and some details have been changed to protect students’ identities.