I think Valentine’s Day is really a holiday for singles.
I’ll freely admit to my biases. Unless something really unexpectedly awesome happens in the next five days or so, I’m staring down the barrel of my 21st consecutive Valentine’s Day on which I’m not actually in a relationship — a feat that happens so consistently and expertly every damn February that, at this point, I think it’s kind of a talent. So my feeling toward Feb. 14 could very easily be bitterness.
But Valentine’s Day, as it’s generally celebrated now, has always struck me as a holiday that exists primarily to make people in relationships feel bad — and, at the same time, to enrich companies that sell shiny or pretty things that’ll make people in relationships feel better.
I don’t pretend that that’s a novel idea — people complain about the commercialization of our culture, and rightfully so. But I do think it’s an idea that’s worth repeating, because the commercialization of love is particularly abhorrent.
One of the main ideas behind love, after all, is finding someone you love uniquely, someone whose quirks you find endearing, someone whose flaws you find charming (or at least forgivable), someone whose smile coaxes out your own and someone who feels the same about you. Expressing that love should be a very personal and individual experience and not dictated by Kay Jewelers marketing department.
If we cut through all the bullshit associated with the holiday — the manipulative TV commercials, the “spending equals love” mentality, the purported rules and procedures for dating — Valentine’s Day is really just an excuse to tell someone you like just how much you like them.
And this is why I think Valentine’s Day should really be about those who aren’t already in a relationship. People already in relationships usually have ample excuses every day to do that; people who are single don’t.
So here’s my suggestion for those who are single: If you have somebody in mind that you legitimately like and care about, tell them. And if you think you might want to get dinner or a movie or whatever with them, tell them that too.
I know this all sounds very seventh grade, and we should all probably be past the whole “unspoken crush” thing. But not all of us are, and a lot of otherwise socially adept people who graduated from middle school know someone who inexplicably draws out that awkward, oh-God-why-am-I-so-bad-at-this side of them.
If you’re one of these people, I’m calling you out. Because there’s rarely a legitimate reason not to tell them how you feel.
“What if they don’t take it well?” As long as you’re not weird or creepy about it, most kindhearted people will take it as a compliment.
“What if it ruins our friendship?” If it does, it probably wasn’t the most solid friendship anyway. And in general, anybody who values his or her friendships doesn’t end them for minor stuff.
“What if it winds up being something I regret doing?” Almost universally, the regret people feel over the chances they didn’t take sting much more in retrospect than the ones they did.
“What if they say ‘no’?” It could happen, but at the very least, I’m sure they’ll appreciate knowing how well they’re regarded.
I understand that trying to find someone to love is an exercise in silly optimism, but there are worse things in the world than being a silly optimist. Using Valentine’s Day to tell someone how you feel about them isn’t just the purest use of the day, it’s a stab at taking the holiday back from those who try to define love in their own financial terms and monetize our emotions. Our love and our emotions belong to us, after all. And so does Valentine’s Day. So, get goin’ and tell someone you care about they look cute today.
Joe Dellosa is an advertising senior. His columns appear on Tuesdays.
