Valentine’s Day is among the worst holidays of the year, right beside Columbus Day and April Fool’s Day.
When I open Instagram this Friday, I do not want to see pictures of you and your significant other. I assure you, I do not care about your relationship and have no desire to see it. Other people feel the same way as I do. If you feel the need to share pictures, do it somewhere else, preferably somewhere I won’t see them.
Most of the time, Valentine’s Day seems to create unrealistic expectations of how the day should go. We all want to have the perfect day where we spend time with our perfect significant other doing everything that we could ever dream of. These expectations are nearly impossible to fulfill and often lead to disappointment.
Valentine’s Day just makes it harder for people to celebrate their love. Even making a dinner reservation is almost impossible on Valentine’s Day because everyone else is trying to do the same. To celebrate Valentine’s Day, many people are going to be doing the same few things: buying flowers, going to dinner and getting a card. All of these things will have you competing against every other person who is in a relationship. If you want to go out you have to make plans weeks in advance, or be ready to wait for hours to do almost anything.
Besides the pressure put onto people who are in relationships, there is also pressure on those who are single. People who are single may feel like they need to find a relationship before Valentine’s Day comes around. Being single on Valentine’s is something that is looked at as bad by most people. It seems like everyone else is in a relationship on Valentine’s while you are alone. Even though there are many other single people, it feels like you are being singled out.
If you are single, remember that you too have love to celebrate. Spend the night in with your friends doing things that make you happy. Romantic love is not the only type of love that should be celebrated on Valentine’s Day.
Everything on TV and the internet leading up to Valentine’s Day seems like it is about love. If I see one more commercial about buying flowers or an engagement ring, I may lose my mind. These commercials are unnecessary and annoying to me. They all tell the same stories and guilt you into feeling like you have to do something big for Valentine’s Day.
While Valentine’s Day seems to be about love it has turned into a consumerist holiday. Americans spent $20.7 billion for Valentine’s Day last year according to the National Retail Foundation, a record amount, and that number is set to grow more this year. The celebration is more about American greed than it is about love at this point.
The ideal Valentine’s Day in movies includes gifts and expensive dinners, purchases that are excessively expensive and replace the love that Valentine’s Day is supposed to celebrate.
When we talk about love we are usually referring to romantic love, we forget that there are many more types of love. Valentine’s Day clouds our vision of the other types of love we have in our life, such as our love for friends. Valentine’s Day should be a day where we look at every type of love in our lives, not just romantic love.
This Valentine’s Day, I ask you to think about your love for people other than your significant other. Love your friends who are single and in a relationship alike, love your family, and love everyone else. Then do that every day.