Valentine’s Day
The hallmark of commercialism, a chance for reflection, or an opportunity to rejoice about love?
As a singleton —I chose to kill them with kindness this Valentines Day. I believe V-day is a celebration of contrived capitalism aimed at the target market of the emotionally defunct. It embodies the mantra: If you can’t say it out loud, write it in a card. I am a sop. I am sentimental. I am all for speaking my truth. And yes, I have previously sent Valentine’s Day cards. I have also known to be extremely bitter about my not-so-new-found-singledom. However this year, I went from hopeless to hopeful romantic and it felt fantastic.
I exchanged my first Valentine’s Day card aged 13. A family friend. I’d had a crush on him since our parents introduced us. He hand-delivered it through our letter box. Better still, it was a hand-crafted, felt-tipped masterpiece with a silver heart necklace tucked inside. It was a disgusting piece of jewellery, even for 2006. A pink suede chain with the heart tied at a jaunty angle. Still, I wore it every day with pride until my crush subsided. Nothing can replace the ‘love from ????’ thrill as you star in your own easy-to-solve, cupid-based Poirot. I set some clever clues for my admirer: a lipstick smudged kiss on the card; a spritz of the envelope with my perfume (Paris Hilton, Just Me). Romance wasn’t dead.
To this day, this exchange is one of the romantic peaks in my life. A few years later, I realised the driving force between the card interchange was more a reflection of our mothers’ orchestration than his passion. His mother used to decorate her house for Valentine’s Day, for Christ’s sake. Even if sending cards was not optional in their household, I was happy to be the chosen one. We elevated to our first snog a few weeks later. Mum’s the word.
Before I descended into hackneyed V-Day bitterness, there was another moment where Valentine’s Day still tingled with doe-eyed excitement: the first love. Enamoured with the possibility of every opportunity to tell each other how we felt, we exchanged gifts far too expensive for our student budget. (Yes, I was a late bloomer and didn’t get my first long-term boyfriend until final year of university). The smitten high of breakfast in bed to the tune of Fleetwood Mac, fuelled by white roses, chocolates and lashings of lecture-bunking sex. I gloated in a post-coital cloud whilst my single housemates nursed their hangovers from the ‘2 BCUM 1’ night at The Union with a Two for Tuesdays Domino’s offer.
Nothing hits the same as those first hallmark highs. After this point, it all went downhill: The most exciting cards came from my Dad. Prosecco brands started marketing ‘Galentines’. Overpriced set menus. Restaurants flooded with Tinder members. The highlight of February 14th is the premium selection in the M&S Dine in for Two deal (and obviously you should eat both helpings on your own — the portion sizes are far too small not to).
Valentine’s Day in a long-term relationship becomes a depressingly banal opportunity to spend 4 pounds on a printed pun you probably could have come up with yourself or, receive targeted emails from self-pleasure brands who send aubergine emojis in the subject line. I assure you, this feeling is even worse if you get back to together with your first love near-10 years later. As you can probably tell, that one didn’t work out. Let’s just say the majority of the action I enjoyed was limited to aubergine emojis, even on V-Day.
This year, single at 30 and reviewing the pictures my ex-boyfriend posted on Facebook (who still uses that?) atop a ski slope in Zermatt with another petite-built blonde — an initial pang of jealously hit me. After some serious self-therapy, I realised I wasn’t jealous. I didn’t want to be in the picture. I was metaphorically on that ski trip the year before. We chose not to be together with our own actions and words (I had a very big part to play in that). And, if I had made it to that specific apres-ski bar in 2023, I am confident I’d have somehow ended up lobbing a ski a pole at his head.
And so, rather than romantically resenting, I took the opportunity to reflect. What kinds of relationships actually make me jealous? None of them, really. We can’t envy a relationship; it only exists between those two people. You won’t want to stand in for someone else. However, we can envy a level of connection. I thought about what these enviable connections can look like:
It’s the the girlfriend of yours who has a hilarious and beautifully frank attitude to life and love —she’s in a stable 9 year relationship and shares on your WhatsApp group that her boyfriend gets a card and a blowjob every year. The card is a calculator that reads BOOBIES when you turn it upside down.
It’s the straight laced couple you know who recently experienced a new level of sexual freedom by attending their first kink party.
It’s your parents, who leave each other cryptic placeholders that act as a code to an incoming of additional gifts —a teabag on the pillow means a new teapot arriving, a pack of seeds inside a hand-made card signals new gardening gloves. (Neither of them ever remember to buy anything and so they perform parallel invention tests with the contents of the utility cupboard, turning it into a romantic gesture.)
It’s the couple you recently dated whose compersion with her bisexuality made you re-evaluate your view on relationships and romance.
It’s the friends who are planning their weddings this year, and the friends whose weddings you attended last year who remain in their honeymoon phase.
It is those couples you just look at and think: there is no way they could ever be apart. They are perfect for each other. Even sitting on the side-lines fills you with warmth. You enjoy their company together and you’re proud of the people they continue to be for one another.
I happen to live with one of these couples.
With that very feeling, leaving an empty office at 7.15pm on the 14th February, I stopped in one of many gift shops in the Liverpool Street Station underpass. I bought a card for the couple waiting for me at home. I addressed it to them both. I was honest about how much I love their love. Rather than sit in my bitterness, I relished in their happiness. It felt amazing.
Find the people who fill you with the hope that love is a possibility for you. Celebrate them. Use them as beacons of belief that one day you’ll be so lucky as to have that same feeling of warmth — and not just from the side-lines. Become hopefully romantic. Being single will mean you probably won’t get flowers but being bitter means you probably won’t either.