Valentine´s Day - Why it doesn´t make sense
You know how nice it is to wake up one random morning and think to yourself, wouldn’t it be lovely to pick apart another popular holiday just for the funsies? Well, that is what happened to me this morning and now I want to try to explain Valentine´s day to myself.
Now that Valentine´s day has passed and heart-shaped chocolate in the supermarket became half off, I think it is somewhat time to take off the rose colour glasses (maybe even literally) and wonder why we celebrate the holiday of love.
Just for the record, I don’t have any resentment towards this holiday whatsoever. I am just confused why people would actually want to celebrate a concept of love and the chemicals in the brain or more specifically oxytocin. It is just… peculiar if I may say so myself.
For me, the concept of a day dedicated to lovers just seems completely arbitrary. There is no point in doing such a thing. And I say that knowing full well that all of my friends will celebrate this holiday with their valentines and will hate very much me for this (which defeats the purpose of this holiday, but I digress).
Let´s start with the history of the holiday I came to be constantly baffled by. As the story goes, this holiday dates back to the third century when one or two Christian martyrs (probably both called Saint Valentine… surprise surprise) preached on the 14th of February for the last time.
The record is not clear as to how many Christian martyrs prayed for Rome on that faithful day, but it is a publicly adored holiday so let´s look past all the history which inspired the holiday and just focus on literally everything else.
However, for anyone interested in the history of Valentine´s day, I do suggest looking into it because the history is not as stuffy as I thought it would be. For the fact that it is a holiday celebrating love and romance, it is quite dark.
Besides, a history lesson could never hurt. And as a single on Valentine's Day, my favourite activity is to literally bore every couple to death with fun and dark trivia about the day the oh-so love to celebrate so they would stop with the PDA which sometimes makes me feel ill and sick to my stomach.
Now that I know the history of valentine´s day, I realize how far this valentine´s day is removed from its original roots. It used to be a Christian feast honouring one or two martyrs named Saint Valentine but now it is something completely different. But the feast part is still true I guess.
From that day came Valentine’s Day which many lovers love, and many singles love to roll their eyes at. It has become an important part of a modern-day culture like Christmas for the taken part of society and a normal day unpleasantly filled with a lot of pink and PDA for everyone else.
If I can be frank, valentine´s day is a day for love and romance but that doesn’t necessarily only mean the love you have for your partner but generally, the love you have for the people around you. Your family, your friends and maybe even your colleagues/classmates.
My old schools actually liked to celebrate valentine´s day like that with students loving not only their valentines but also friends so that no one would feel excluded from the loving festivities. The schools even had rose-sending services implemented to make the spreading of love all the easier.
What I did not anticipate was the fact that my friends did not like me as much as I was led to believe. So, I sat through valentine´s day seeing everyone holding a rose or valentine´s gift alike while I started to believe that the rest of the world hated me.
Now looking back, valentine´s day was always the day when my self-doubt was at its highest and my self-esteem was at its lowest. For me, February the 14th was never a happy day no matter how much I pretended.
My guess is that no matter how much my old schools tried to make valentine´s day a fun day for all the students, they forgot to anticipate how valentine´s day could make some feel excluded no matter how hard they tried to prevent it.
However, valentine´s day is not all doom and gloom for me. Just because nobody in my school liked me, doesn’t necessarily mean that nobody likes me. My mother always sweetens the day with chocolate, reminding me that she will always love me.
Part of me, on that day, still has a glimmer of hope that a valentine would reveal themself on that day. It has been underwhelming thus far but I guess that is also what makes valentine´s day exciting no matter how disappointing it could be.
Personally, I have nothing against the holiday in and of itself (actually I do now think about it but I will discuss it later), I just have an issue with what that holiday is celebrating. Love, a form of amnesia where a person completely forgets that there are billions of other people in the world.
I have my biases towards love. Not only do I believe that it doesn’t quite exist in the way it is thought to exist but there is also no definite proof of anything. Love is such an emotional topic which is not rooted in science or facts which confuses me, to say the least.
Sure, chemicals are released which cause a chemical imbalance in the brain but that is pretty much it. If you want to find out more, I found a video online which explains the biological/chemical part of love and what it means.
I believe that I already discussed a lot of things I wanted to say in my article about love, which I wrote a few months ago. If I can be frank, I completely forgot what I wrote but I believe I wrote what I would have written in this article (if that makes any sense at all) so… here is the link.
In my humble opinion, I believe that I just don’t understand how we can celebrate something so subjective. Your valentine may not be your soulmate and the mere possibility of that happening just makes valentine´s day feel so uncertain. How can anyone celebrate something as fluidly ambiguous as love?
My uncertainty about love aside. Why does Valentine´s day need to exist in the first place? From a historic standpoint, Valentine´s day is somewhat of an unsung hero´s story but now it just became over commercialised to an unbelievable degree.
I mean if I understand the whole relationship shtick then shouldn´t every day be valentine´s day for couples? If you truly love someone (whatever that means) then you can show it every day and not only save the affection for one particular day in the year.
Make every day valentine´s day if you love your valentine like you said you do. If you can´t, make every day valentine´s day (which is understandable) spread the valentine´s day affection throughout the year and don´t use it all at once on one day of the year.
Spreading out all the lovey-dovey mush throughout the year instead of focusing it on one single day makes valentine´s day so much more bearable for singles as well. To sum it up, spending every day like valentine´s day is not only good for your relationship but also for the people around you.
To be perfectly honest, against popular opinion, I don’t mind being single since I prefer my own company. A lack of relationship commitment just makes life so much easier and simpler. With my already complicated and busy life, I don’t need anything on top of everything.
However, being single on valentine's day is the worst. Not only are you surrounded by happy couples everywhere you go, but you are surrounded by reminders of your independence. As mentioned, I like being single but on valentine´s day, it just makes me sad.
Society has this idea of everyone in their twenties is in a loving relationship with a partner they would want to spend the rest of their lives with. Valentine´s day is just a yearly reminder of the simple fact that you failed at the simple task of finding a loving partner.
And I have no idea why, but a loving day disguised as a cruel reminder is agonizing. No matter where you go you will be faced with the pink chocolaty reminders and couples being lovey-dovey couples reiterating the reminder until you can´t take it anymore.
Even though I never spent a valentine's day with my non-existent significant other, I still know that valentine´s day can be stressful for those overly affectionate couples as well since as a party in a loving committed relationship you would want to make this day of love and romance perfect.
No one tries to set too high expectations for this romantic day, but the simple act of anticipation can lead to dashed hopes and dreams. As a single, the best part of this dreadful day is to see relationships burn to ashes (hate to sound mean but it is truly the best part so let me at least have that).
Nevertheless, even with all the dread that follows on that cold February day and the shattered dreams in which the day ends, I can still see the benefits of being single on this love-filled day (yes, I know I have pessimistic tendencies, but I promise this won´t be fatalistic).
First of all, if you are single on Valentine´s day, you don´t have to shoulder the burden every couple shoulders. Your partner won´t be expecting anything of you because you don’t have one. How relaxing is that?
Besides if you don’t have a partner, you also can´t be disappointed by the things they do/don´t do. It can feel miserable to find out that your partner does not know you as well as you think they do, so by being single you spare yourself that heartache.
A day when everyone is overly focused on their valentine leaves a whole day of no one giving a crap about what you do... in a good way. This day with some sort of lack of accountability gives you the chance to give yourself a break and have a little fun.
The best part about valentine´s day is the discounted chocolate after that dread-filled day. Think of the chocolate as a reward for not flipping every couple the bird and for not ruining someone's meticulously planned valentine´s day date. Generally, for surviving the 14th of February with your sanity intact.
Last but not least, if everyone is coupled up on valentine´s day, it is easier to spot the singles. You could most certainly shit talk valentine's day with other singles and maybe, amongst the crowd, you could even find your partner in crime.
I mean a few benefits most certainly do not make up for the day of torture but it is at least a start and maybe a step in the right direction. I think we need to redefine valentine´s day as a whole because of that way more people get to join the lovely valentine´s day festivities.
When we think about valentine´s day, we think about couples and their bloody PDA. However, valentine´s day has always been about the celebration of love and romance in general including but not exclusively the love couples around the world share.
I know it is a few days late but valentine´s day doesn’t necessarily have to be about couples. You can make it a day about anyone or anything you want. You can make it about your partner, your friends, your family, your dog even or even yourself as long as it is celebrating the love you have for them and yourself.
No matter if you spent valentine´s day alone or with someone you truly love (against all scientific odds), you don´t have to dread nor celebrate this day. Just spend the day however you see fit, ignore the pink and couples as they come and know that couples seized that day for themselves but nothing is stopping you from taking it back.