Anusha:
Whenever the lovely season of Valentine’s Day rolls around, I always look forward to securing myself a box of conversation hearts. I find no problem with candy hearts, and find that they bring me lots of joy. Who wouldn’t love stuffing their mouth with sugary pick-up lines?
Let’s get one thing straight—they taste good. You can actually taste the different flavors, they have the perfect amount of sweet and you can only find them seasonally, making them all the more special as you won’t get sick of them. I won’t lie, the hearts can be pretty dusty, but I don’t think the texture takes away from the taste at all; if anything, it adds to the unique experience. There is so much nostalgia wrapped up in the sugary heart-shaped chalk, and I’ve always found them just as yummy as your standard everyday hard candy.
Besides just the taste, I think I speak for many when I say that we overlook the amount of validation one can get from a piece of candy. Many anti-sweetheart, love-hating goons will say that the messages are cheesy or cringey. To these haters I say: live a little. I love how unfiltered they are and how unapologetically thirsty conversation hearts will go with their messages. Sure, a piece of candy that reads “Be My Sugar Daddy” or “Bite Me” can be pretty stark, but you would be lying if you said you didn’t get a kick out of reading those chalky little suckers.
Sophia:
I never looked forward to getting candy hearts during the Valentine’s Day season, and I always dreaded seeing them at the bottom of my elementary-school Valentine’s box. The hearts were usually the last-minute fix for a forgotten Valentine’s gift–and never met with a good reaction.
The message on the candy heart would never be intact and was almost always unreadable. They are hardly ever even heart shaped: you usually just get a circle or a sad excuse for a heart. The cheesy pickup lines of “Be Mine,” “You Rule” or “Too Cool” make me want to throw up. Feeling violated by a piece of candy is no fun, not to mention you can hardly read them- either blurred or running off the side.
The second you open the box in hope of a quick sugar high you are met with a chalky feeling running along your tongue. The texture of the hearts is terrible by-itself, not to mention they’re also rock solid. I absolutely hate going through the box to find more than half of the hearts being inedible because of how hard they are, and one wants to go to the dentist with both cavities and a broken tooth.
