St. Valentine's Day

Valentine’s Day: similar to Marmite in that you probably love it, or loath it. A day to overspend on loved ones, or indeed, ‘the one’, Valentines can end up turning into a living nightmare for chocoholics, singles or indeed those in long standing relationships. But instead of face planting into a bowl of calories and girlie chick flicks, isn’t it time to just appreciate those we care about?

With so much hype centred around this idea that you have to be in ‘love’ to enjoy Valentine’s Day and if you’re single you must fit the stereotype of being downright depressed, drinking wine by the gallon and tucking into your second tub of Ben and Jerry’s Cookie Dough by 7pm, it can be easy to miss the point of St. Valentine entirely.

For the past two Valentine’s Day’s my boyfriend at the time completely forgot to even send me a card! Two years in a row! Instead, I had to answer the front door to beautiful bouquets being delivered to not one, but both of my single housemates. That was enough to send anyone out their right mind! So I’ve come to the conclusion that if no one loves you on Valentine’s day, they probably don’t like you any other day of the year either, cynical I know!

I’m overly excited to see how America handles this consumer driven, cliché day. Obnoxious looking cards are plastered in every store, hideous oversized teddy bears and chocolates wrapped in love heart shaped boxes almost make me happy that I’m single. Arguably, being single on Valentine’s Day is actually a blessing in disguise, I’ve been invited to so many themed events that I’m struggling to plan how to fit them all in! From a typical American ‘Singles Awareness’ evening, fit with a piñata (of course!), to a ‘Galentine’s’ evening (girls only) with copious amounts of home baked goodies and films. Other options include, raiding the single population of Columbia’s downtown, watching an annual performance of Eve Ensler's award winning play ‘The Vagina Monologues’ or simply going to IHOP with my best friend for heart shaped pancakes. I’m totally spoilt for choice!

One of the things I love about Valentine’s Day is that if you look carefully enough, there’s a particular facial expression that you will only ever see on February 14^th. It’s the smug look of guys exchanging shrugging grins with other males clutching flowers and boxes of chocolates. Whilst everyone recognises the innate ludicrousness of a single day where guys are expected to buy their secret admirer or better half flowers and/or chocolates (conspiracy spearheaded by Hallmark?). If you look past all the consumerism, you’ll see blokes jumping at the chance to tell that said person how much they mean to them, and who said romance was dead? A bit of guts and glory chivalry can go a long way!

So whilst we can’t all be treated like a princess for 24 hours and expect Ryan Gosling to come sweep us off our feet, maybe it’s time to step out the comfort zone, if only for a moment, to tell that person in your Chemistry class you actually would like to grab a coffee together.    Instead of staying camouflaged behind the safety net of your iphone, impassively swiping through apps like Tinder, or spending hours on Facebook day dreaming about the girl who lives next door. I’m sure Shakespeare is rolling in his grave at the lack of grand gestures and manly courage, maybe we should take a note out of his book this V-day and simply remember that ‘The course of true love did never run smooth’…