Before you start coming after me with accusations that I'm a cynical person who doesn’t love love, let me just say this: I am a firm believer in love. Proposal videos make me cry almost as hard as when I watch military veterans return from war and surprise their family members (or when I watch food videos). I love seeing two people who care about each other more than they care about anyone else in this world. I love when my friends' significant others ask me what to get for them and I love seeing my friends' faces when they open up a present that I knew that they were going to love because I got to help pick it out. I am not one of those people who thinks that love is a sham and that no one should get married because it just ends up in heartbreak. However, I do hate Valentine’s day.
I hate Valentine’s Day because it puts a huge amount of pressure on people who are already in relationships. You have to look at how long you've been dating someone and then you have to decide what the appropriate gift is for that amount of time. What if you are just “talking” or “kind of together” with someone? Do you get each other gifts? Plus, if you have friends who are in relationships, then what happens if they get something that's better than what you got? Does their boyfriend love them more than yours loves you? I was dating a boy for a little over a month last Valentine’s Day and he sent a giant teddy bear and flowers to my sorority house, making me the most envied inhabitant of Alpha Xi Delta for the day. I had friends who got mediocre gifts or nothing at all from guys who they had been dating for much longer. That boy didn’t love me and I didn’t love him, we were barely out of the "I like you a little bit" phase, but my friends were questioning why their boyfriends didn’t go over the top for them like mine did. Valentine’s Day is always about topping other people or topping yourself from the year before. It becomes not only about the gift, but the experience that goes with it. It seems like people are just trying to get a gift worthy of making the cut to post to their Instagram in order to make their friends jealous. If you’re going to celebrate Valentine’s Day with your significant other, then shouldn’t you be celebrating what the day is supposed to be about? Your relationship and how much you care for one another should be the focus, not the gift.
Valentine’s Day is really the worst if you’re single. You watch all of your friends go out to dinner and receive flowers, chocolate, and presents while you sit at home on your couch with a bottle of wine, wondering why you can’t get a date. Honestly, you probably can get a date. You're just too picky, but there's nothing wrong with being picky. I’m picky too and I think that it’s good to be that way. Do you really just want to settle for someone so that you aren’t alone on Valentine’s Day, the most pointless day of the year? It’s the worst because you might look back on past relationships and wonder why they didn’t work out. It’s the worst because even if you aren’t cynical already, you become that way for a day and watching happy couples makes you want to gag.
Valentine’s Day is the worst whether you are single or in a loving, happy relationship. There’s too much pressure and it becomes too materialistic. Hit me up if you are going to be single this Valentine’s Day. We can eat chocolate and laugh while we burn pictures of our exes together.
