All Request Day: Valentine's Day

Christine asks for a post about my views on Valentine's Day -- do I think it's an overcommercialized marketing opportunity or a sweet celebration of love? 

I guess I think it's both.  I don't much mind all the pink in the drugstores, all the Hallmark cards and pictures of roses everywhere, but they also don't move me at all.  If someone tried to woo me with a Valentine's gift of roses and chocolates and a pink card I would probably think that he lacked imagination. 

For the last few years I've send cards out, sometimes homemade and sometimes store bought cards, to people who I think would get a thrill from them.  I don't sign them, and I disguise my handwriting or type the address on the envelope for a bit of a mystery.  The first year I did it two of my friends called me up excitedly to tell me about a mysterious valentine they received and to speculate about who it might be from.  That's a fun thing to do, and Valentine's Day is a good excuse for that.  I haven't figured out what I'll do this year, but I look forward to it.  It is a good time to acknowledge love and to reach out.  My aunt and uncle send out their equivalent of a Christmas letter, with news about the family and the events they've done all year, on Valentine's Day and it's always nice to get -- full of love, and sent to the people they love, it's a testament to an enduring relationship and to what I like about the holiday. 

The thing I don't like about Valentine's Day is that it makes me ashamed to be alone.  It doesn't make me feel any lonelier than I do ordinarily -- and these days, I'm pretty contented.  But it makes me ashamed.  I feel like it's not socially acceptable to be single; like there's no place for me; like I'm a loser.  I feel like I need to explain myself or come up with a good excuse.  I've been sick.  The dog ate my boyfriend.  I don't have a good excuse.  I'm single.  I'd like, I suppose, not to be single.  But I don't want to be pushed into it by the red and pink cellophane display aisle in Rite Aid.  There's something about the way Valentine's Day is marketed that makes me feel like it's unacceptable not to have a sweet pea, and like spending it going about my life and celebrating the love that's in it is wrong somehow.  Like I'm supposed to go hide in a little box because nobody knows what to do with a single person and it'll embarrass everyone and ruin Valentine's Day for the folks who actually deserve to celebrate it.  That discomfort, the feeling like there's no acknowledgment of any alternative to moony-eyed coupledom, is something I don't like about Valentine's Day. 

Comments

[deb]

Excellent points. I have a good single girlfriend up in Chicago who sends me a card once a year: at Valentine's day. Your post reminded me how sweet it is, and as a newly single person, I really don't want to be bitter about being alone this Feb 14. I think I may create my own "love" tradition. Thanks for the inspiration.

[cmc]

It's funny you should mention your sense that being single is in some sense not always considered socially acceptable. Maybe I am weird (or immature?) but my view of the world has always been the opposite. I always loooooved being single (meaning unmarried and uncoupled in any way), never felt the slightest bit of awkwardness about it nor the slightest bit of desire to change my single state.

When I wound up nonetheless marrying relatively young (at 26), I felt vaguely embarassed to be settling down, as though I had become a stodgy and boring person. And, at 33, I still feel that way especially when I am with peers who are still single. They are youthful and hip, with a world of possibility at their feet, whereas I am committed (happily so, but nonetheless committed)to a particular set of circumstances. I think our culture is a bit schizophrenic as to what the ideal lifestyle should be, so the grass seems greener on the other side for everyone.

[anthony]

I dunno - I'm single and the grass sure doesn't seem greener on the other side. I'm the one managing the calls from my pathetic married friends as to what I did last weekend...

;)

/aac

[Christina]

Thanks for answering my question! A great answer. I definitely feel like being single isn't as "socially acceptable" as well. It's like society/the media keeps bombarding us with the concept that being one of two is better than being one of one...

[sidhra]

One of the sweetest traditions of the Old Port is the "hearting" of the place on Feb. 14. Best year was when the silk-screened 8 1/2x11 heart-emblazoned sheets also all read "it's not only one day". It's nice that some folks still trot the hearts out just for an unseen smile, don't you think?

To the author:

You're bitter about being single so you screw with the emotions of people you claim to regard as friends? I take that as a good indication as to why you are still single.