This is not an advice article, in fact it’s quite the opposite. None of the strategies I’m about to talk about are anything close to something I’d recommend for literally anyone in my life. If anything, this is a guidebook for how not to spend your Valentine’s Day when you don’t have a special someone. However, these are certainly ways that I tend to spend my February 14th every year as the token third wheel of all my friend groups. So this season, when it feels like everyone around you is in love, maybe take my advice not as a bucket list, but a warning sign.
1. Air your grievances!
This valentine’s season isn’t the easiest. Recently single, with a lot of feelings regarding that status make it all the harder to see everyone else gushing about how sweet their boyfriend is. Even worse is the fact that I insist on surrounding myself with artists of all kinds. So not only are the people around me constantly talking about their beautiful relationships, they are writing it down in metered verse. I’ve begun attending a weekly open mic night recently so maybe I’ve brought it on myself, but when the theme for the evening is love songs and poetry I almost wish I hadn’t come that night. This is where the advice comes in.
If everybody else is going to write down their love in metered verse and rhyme scheme, I suppose it’s only fair for me to write down my singleness in metered verse and rhyme scheme. I wrote a poem about the exes that have wronged me and shared it publicly at a coffee shop! (The same coffee shop that I went on a first date at just a few months ago, mind you). After threatening to hunt down anybody in the building that knew my ex because I think I would actually combust if it ever got back to him, I let loose strings of direct quotes from the day I was broken up with.
Was this necessarily a healthy way to declare that I’m over my past? I’m not sure, especially considering how long I’ve been trying to declare that I’m completely over the guy I was writing about. It was very cathartic though and perhaps it was my final push to the last stages of grieving that relationship. I’m sure some may still call it petty to let those words leave my Google Docs file though.
2. Decide that it’s a stupid holiday anyway.
So what if Valentine’s Day has been associated with romantic love since the 14th century! That doesn’t even mean anything! In order to properly ignore the history of a holiday, one must understand that history for themselves. As far back as the 1300s, authors wrote of their beloved as their Valentine. For Geoffrey Chaucer, his love story was based on the mating cycles of birds. Later, Charles, Duke of Orléans yearns for his “very gentle Valentine” while he is being held in prison. For our purposes, it might be easier to stick with the bird story.
Sometimes it’s just easier to be a downer. Even I wouldn’t suggest being annoying about your new hatred of the holiday around all your friends in relationships. That’s how you lose them. But in private? In private, you can make this February 14th actively bad for humanity. Maybe it’s just made up by the greeting card companies. Maybe Valentine’s Day is just another part of the corporate hellscape that is late stage capitalism. Go full conspiracy theory with it, even! Perhaps Valentine’s Day was made up specifically to make you, yes you, feel bad about your lack of a relationship. Besides, this year the day before was Friday the 13th so really it was doomed from the start.
Now maybe thinking this way will put you in a bad mood. Quite possibly actually harmful to your overall mindset, but look on the bright side! At least you won’t be sad about Valentine’s Day anymore if you’re too busy being angry about the whole idea.
3. Yearn. regret. Repeat
So maybe you’re not a skilled poet. And negativity just isn’t your strong suit. What about this next strategy? Make Valentine’s a day to find love of your own. If you’re me, this begins in the weeks leading up to the 14th. I put my instagram username on a whiteboard outside my dorm with a note that said “I’m the only single one in this suite. I need a Valentine!” I really wish I was joking. But that didn’t find me a new beloved, so I moved on to the next best thing: A hobby I like to call “Aura-farming in public in the hopes of a man that’s just my type approaching me” (Working on a trademark). I put on the pretty clothes and I go to local coffee shops hoping for the slim chance that somebody will sit down across from me and ask me “Can I buy you a coffee?” I’m literally doing that right now as I write this.
When that doesn’t work, because life unfortunately isn’t a romcom, I go back to my dorm to wonder why I even went out in the first place. Usually this ends up with me on the phone with my mom, interrupting her Valentine’s Day date with my father. If I can’t have a pretty relationship and go on cute dates then nobody can, I guess.
“All my friends in love and I’m the one they call for a third wheel”
Sabrina Carpenter
Like the title suggests, nothing I’ve advised here is a very good idea. So what should you do to get through this Valentine’s Day and the slump that can come with it? Short answer. Your best. Be happy for your friends when they send you pictures of their chocolate boxes they got. Know that you don’t have to prove how “over” your last relationship you are to anybody. Wear your pinks and reds for you, not for imaginary cute guys at coffee shops. (And maybe write an article for your school club about your complicated relationship with the 14th of February). This day can be hard when you’re like me and perpetually single but it doesn’t have to be… As long as you don’t listen to any tips in this article.