Romance was not in the air as a stereo blasted "Love me cancerously, like a salt-sore soaked in the sea."
Assisting the back beat to the song "Love Me Dead," by alternative rock band Ludo, was 13-year-old James Dallimore, who hammered away at candy hearts that read "U R A CUTIE" and "I LOVE YOU."
Dallimore and two dozen other teenagers, from Skyline and Brighton high schools and several junior high and middle schools, gathered at the Whitmore Library on Saturday to celebrate their own Anti-Valentine's Day party.
"It's not that we're against the idea of showing love," said 16-year-old Fay Fay Ye, adding people should show their love for each other every day, not just during "one commercial holiday."
And to that end, Ye and several other high-schoolers who helped organize the event don't really have a problem with Valentine's Day, but rather, the advertisements that say spending money equals love.
"It's just like pre-packaged romance, you know ... you go out and buy it from a store and it means nothing," said 17-year-old Dan Turchenko.
So instead, the teens had store-bought, heart-shaped cookies they broke in half, and decorated themselves with black icing and hammered bits of candy hearts. Or, they wrote anti-love poems based on famous poems from books taken off the library shelves.
While anti-Valentine's was sarcastic fun for some of the teenagers, there was a little sting for Emily McNary.
"I just broke up with my boyfriend," said the 17-year-old.
It happened last week and was intense, she said.
"But I'm with my friends, so that totally counts," she said of her Valentine's Day activities. "And there's food -- and food always comforts the heart."
While most attendees were single, the event drew one couple, McNary's friends Jordan Stirling and Michael Affleck.
Stirling has come to expect the homemade cards, cookies and candies her out-of-town sister mails. But she's not much into the typical Valentine's romance.
"What if I actually wanted something?" Stirling asked her boyfriend.
After a small exchange, Affleck reminds her that he did bring over pretzels from the other table.
The couple's Valentine's Day plans?
"We're probably going to do homework." she said.
