Single-in-St-Andrews: Valentine’s Angst

It’s only an hour into Valentine’s Day and already I feel sick to my stomach…

This could be a side-effect of my pre-emptive chocolate eating, or perhaps anxiety over my tutorial tomorrow morning (well, technically this morning) for which I’m egregiously un-prepared, but most likely it is this strange phenomenon that has recently struck me on February 14^th for the past few years: the Valentine’s Angst.

Now, this may shock you, but as a single girl in St Andrews, I don’t actually hate Valentine’s Day. In fact, when I was young it was one of my favourite holidays. Back when my love for a holiday was directly proportional to the amount of candy it permitted me to consume, Valentine’s Day was rivaled only by Halloween. We would all wear pink and red to school, make (or buy) cheap paper valentines for everyone in our class, maybe make a special card for that certain crush we had and leave it in their cubby (anonymously of course)… but at the end of the day, the focus was generally on the glitter-glue and the sugar.

As I’ve grown older, however, I’ve had to face the painful realisation that eating chocolates out of a heart-shaped box while alone in one’s pjs is apparently not a desired way to spend one’s evening.  Watching rom-com’s as a child, I was perplexed as to why such beautiful movie stars were sitting in bed, crying their eyes out when they had a giant box of chocolates in their laps!  What fools!

Then puberty hit and I discovered hormones and boys and relationships and it all made sense.

For the single person, dreading and complaining about Valentine’s Day is a pass-time that feels exhausted before it even begins.  Everything negative about this god-forsaken holiday has already been said a thousand times over:  it’s all a conspiracy to get people to spend money on flowers that will die, chocolates that will go stale, and relationships that won’t last.  The stereotypical single-girls get together to wallow in our loneliness and sexual frustration, and heavily drink away our sorrows.  There’s generally chocolate involved, a pint of Ben&Jerry’s, and lots of alcohol.  Maybe a slasher film or two.

But why is it that single people have gotten this bad-rep as the Grinches of Valentine’s Day?  We don’t run around snatching presents from those Who-couples down in St Who-ville.  Why are we always the pathetic, bitter, bad guys?

Even in that torturously-bad movie, Valentine’s Day, Jessica Biel’s character hosts the now almost expected anti-valentine party for her and her single girlfriends (who end up standing her up and I think something happens where she realises the true meaning of the holiday… whatever it is, it’s very Grinch-esque).

Nowadays, the single person on Valentine’s Day isn’t allowed to feel anything but depressed and bitter.  It’s the role we’ve been given to play, because no single girl/guy in their right mind would admit enjoying a holiday that only reminds them they don’t have that ‘special someone’ to spend it with.

As for the couples, from what I understand of non-single life, Valentine’s Day is an opportunity to spend a slightly-more-romantic evening together – candlelit dinner, a bubble bath for two, rose petals and champagne… something along those lines. There is usually an exchange of cards/chocolate/flowers and always that same question:  will you be my valentine?  (And if you’re already in a relationship, the answer is generally ‘yes.’) 

Yet, for many of the couples I’ve talked to, Valentine’s Day isn’t anything so special.  A few insist on going all-out, but most would rather do what they normally do on romantic evening together – without the pressure of a designated day forcing that ‘romance’ and putting their relationship in the spotlight.

Way back in high school, when I was in a relationship (yes, even I have not always been single), I remember gearing up for Valentine’s Day like it was Christmas.  I felt that what my boyfriend and I did for our first Valentine’s Day had to perfectly define who we were as a couple.  Would we be deeply romantic, or more laid-back? Would we take it seriously, or be a little more tongue-in-cheek? How could I, as a 15-year-old deeply in love, act like this wasn’t the BIGGEST DEAL IN THE WORLD for me?

I ended up slaving away on a beautiful hand-made card and killing myself to make the perfect batch of cupcakes from scratch which, of course, went horribly wrong and I cried and finally made it out to dinner exhausted, disheveled and a little sweaty from the overwhelming pressure of being the ‘perfect’ valentine I thought I had to be. 

In return, I received a valentine made almost entirely out of alien-robot stickers. 

I’m not kidding.  I still have it.

And that’s when it hit me: all my stress and slaving away wasn’t actually about my relationship, but about others’ perception of my relationship.  Commercialism and popular culture have turned Valentine’s Day into this absurdly public display of affection between couples that ends up, in many cases, cheapening any actual emotional connection while simultaneously isolating single people everywhere.

So here’s my proposed solution: we revert Valentine’s Day back to what it used to be when we were kids. Get rid of the pressure, the high-stakes romantic gestures, and bring back the candy hearts and the hand-made valentines. Everyone gives a valentine to anyone and everyone they care about in whatever way. There’s no pressure to have that ‘special someone’ because everyone has too many special people to choose just one!  Pull on those pink and red stripey tights and whip out the glitter-glue, and don’t let any holiday make you feel like you aren’t loved (I know it’s all too sappy, but that’s something that you just can’t take away from Valentine’s Day, right?).

And maybe, just maybe, you’ll find time to make that one – incredibly anonymous – valentine to put in someone’s library locker…