I love Valentine’s Day. Recently, I have maintained the idea that being single and being a Valentine’s Day-lover should not be mutually exclusive. Every year, as that fateful day in February approaches, single people everywhere are confronted with stores lined with candy hearts, sappy hallmark cards, and many, many heart-shaped boxes of chocolate. I, too, used to dread this mushy, gushy confrontation I was faced with, seeing the holiday as a reminder of what I did not have.
Yet, last year, I decided to take a new approach. This is an approach I wanted to share to potentially convert some V-day haters.
The most significant part of my journey to loving Valentine’s Day was reminding myself that a Valentine does not have to be romantic. Some of our most important relationships in life are platonic. What sparked my new outlook was actually a Valentine’s Day I spent with my best friend a year ago. Both of us, for a couple of years, have been in what some would call a romantic drought. Therefore, we had also been perpetual V-day scrooges.
So, last year, we decided to celebrate together and make this Valentine’s one we would love. Inspired by the days of walking around the classroom and putting our specially curated valentines on our classmate’s desks, we decided to recreate this feeling by making ones for each other. This not only ended up being a fun craft for our night, but a reminder that Valentine’s Day is less about the pressure of romance and more about showing our love for the people around us. This actually influenced us to make even more for all of our friends and family, spreading our holiday love.
As we distributed these Valentine’s notes, I wondered why this feeling surrounding the holiday ever left. In today’s world, as we have grown older, we have also become surrounded by abundant access to cute couple videos, romantic TikTok edits, and other constant reminders of our single-dom; it’s hard not to recognize love as only romantic.
With this consistent imagery, we must remember that, as my favorite romantic comedy says, “love is all around us,” and when we forget this, society becomes divided. So, this year, cupid may not have struck you with an arrow and you may not have gotten that rom-com kiss, but you do have love in your life. You just have to remember to look around for it. This Valentine’s Day, I encourage you to stop dreading the holiday’s reminder of love and join in.