Love is everywhere. Despite being one of a good 124 million single people in America, everywhere I look in the month of February, I see romance. This is never more obvious than on the biggest day of love: Valentine's Day.
Gifts are exchanged, romantic getaways are booked, and everything is covered in red and pink hearts. In the most literal sense, looking around on Valentine's Day is like looking at the world through $18.2 billion, mega-festive, rose-colored glasses. No escape.
Here's the thing: Most people would anticipate me rolling my eyes, making gagging noises, and spending the day wallowing in my own single status, rebuking capitalism's grasp upon something as intimate as our love lives, and listening to a Taylor Swift album.
I know that I'm supposed to hate Valentine's Day, but I don't. In fact, I actually love it, cheesiness and all.
I celebrate it every year, despite being eternally single. Over time, I've actually learned that I prefer celebrating Valentine's Day as a single person.
Valentine's Day doesn't necessarily need to be about the love that's shared solely among couples. We've evolved past that singular, old-fashioned definition of love with the creation of things like Galentine's Day, as well as our changing thoughts about the necessity of relationships. It's 2018 and by now, we know that healthy, fulfilling love isn't an exclusive club for those in monogamous, committed typical relationships.
Our definitions of love have changed and expanded, so I celebrate self-love on a day dedicated any and all love. On a typical Valentine's Day, I buy myself roses or I indulge in a bath bomb or I buy myself dinner. It's gratifying and it's how I show myself a little extra affection because I deserve it from myself before anybody else.
To quote RuPaul, "If you can't love yourself, how in the hell are you gonna love somebody else?" For me, if I can't give myself a special day, I definitely can't plan, prepare, or even want to give someone else something even more special if or when I am in a relationship. For now, it's about me and I'm going to enjoy that while I can.
But even if I were in a relationship, Valentine's Day isn't some sort of institutionally mandated day of worldwide, constant fun for people in relationships.
valentines day rush roses
Not me, but I do love roses. Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images
Some people do hate it, even if they have a significant other.
My first and only Valentine's Day spent with a boyfriend was pretty disappointing. Beforehand, I anticipated the big day with extremely high hopes. I'd never had a Valentine before and had assumed my single celebrations— bath bombs, "Sex & The City" marathons, and chocolate — would pale in comparison to the newly-unlocked world of my own Carrie and Big romance.
In my head, it'd be like a scene "The Bachelor," complete with fireworks, roses, and champagne. I'd forget my juvenile enjoyments because suddenly, I was one half of something I'd never experienced before. I plotted the day with every fiber of my being, picking out a perfect gift and wonder what he'd give me to make me experience Valentine's Day like never before.
One problem: my boyfriend hated Valentine's Day.
Some people just don't enjoy the pressure or the cheesiness or the smell of roses, no matter who they're dating.
In the case of my boyfriend, he assured me many times that it was his least favorite holiday, but I let my own blind anticipation eclipse reality and ended up inevitably disappointed.
How could someone who didn't enjoy this specific holiday (for whatever understandable, justifiable reason) be expected to live up to my own over-the-top vision of a celebration? That's not what he wanted to celebrate because not only did he not like the holiday itself, but my vision totally missed the point. He tried his best, but I couldn't let go of what I'd pictured in my head as the secret world of a "real" Valentine's Day.
There's no such thing as a "real" Valentine's Day. There's no secret door that's unlocked on Valentine's Day that allows couples to have a perfect day of romantic nirvana. For everyone, it looks different and that's a good thing. I celebrate it in a way that I think makes me feel happy and fulfilled, but everyone has a right to do as they please on February 14, love it or hate it.
I honor my own vision of love (shout-out Mariah Carey) and I don't scoff at other people's. It'd be easy to laugh at all of the PDA and the predictable gifts, but really, it'd be not only hypocritical based on my own cheesy tendencies, it would also just be cruel.
There's no need for me to demean someone else's love or their expression of it just because it might differ from own. Their holiday does not and should not detract from my own. I just make sure that I enjoy my day.
It's true, love is everywhere. And it's worth celebrating however you choose, even if it means celebrating the love that you feel with, for, and by yourself.