Everyone always tells you that being a single female on Valentine’s Day isn’t bad. That if you really think about it, you’re lucky because you don’t have to answer to anyone else, and you don’t have to worry about the feelings or whereabouts of a significant other. Save your money, do whatever you want in your free time, go out with your girls without conflict, never have to share your food with a guy, on and on. Has anyone actually stopped to think about what if we want to go out with someone on Valentine’s Day? How many single guys or girls make the effort to reach out to a single person and ask them to be their Valentine? And how many people, when actually getting asked out, get stood up?
I have this friend, let’s call him Jason. Now Jason and I have been friends for relatively a year and a half, met through a mutual friend, hung out every so often. Now that I turned 21 this year, I’ve seen Jason at the bar with friends, and I’ve joined him. We’ve bought each other drinks, we’ve talked before through Snapchat, hung out at parties when we were both there, the usual. But on Mardi Gras, I just so happened to run into Jason while he was at the bar. I sat with him and his friend–let’s call him Lucky–and we had a good time. We caught up on our lives, we talked of our majors, made each other laugh and have stories that became inside jokes. Lucky and Jason had to get home to get some stuff done, so they wished me good night and headed out. Not even a minute later, Jason came back over to me, and clearly nervous asked, “Would you wanna get a drink? With me? Tomorrow? Here?” I teased him a little, due to that being my personality, but I said yes and gave him my number since I figured that’d be easier to contact me. He texted me asking again, just checking to make sure I was really saying yes, and it made me smile since I’d never been asked out for Valentine’s Day.
Fast forward to the next day, and I text Jason around 5, asking what time is best for him. He then responds with, “I’m not feeling going up to the pub tonight. How about this weekend?”
My first thought was, “I’m busy all weekend, I actually truly can’t.”
I texted him back. “Anything else you’d wanna do instead tonight?”
I got no response.
My second thought was, “What the hell, why does this always happen to me?”
I waited two more hours.
My third thought was, “S**t. I just got canceled on on Valentine’s Day.”
Needless to say, that was the highlight of my day.
So what did I do? I asked my roommate to be my Valentine. We went to Wine and Spirits and we bought ourselves each a bottle of wine. We invited over our friend, and together we each drank all the bottles and watched “August Rush”.
Being single on Valentine’s Day? Yeah, maybe it’s not ideal. Maybe we get our hopes up too easily as this “Romantic Holiday” comes around to bite us all in the ass. Maybe our expectations are higher than we want to admit. And maybe, just maybe, we’re not doing enough to make our own happy endings. But the happy endings I want don’t have to come on a stallion horse, a dozen roses, giant teddy bears or jewelry.
I just want a guy who won’t cancel on me.
Now is that too much to ask?
Happy Valentine’s Day. Here’s to another year of being single.