I love being single on Valentine's Day!

I effing love Valentine’s Day.  I’m not even joking.  It’s my favorite holiday when I’m single. 

When I’m in a relationship, I could go either way on V-Day.  The traditional dinner, flowers, movie, date, or whatever is fine, but I don’t feel that there needs to be a special holiday created just so that you can get a special date.  However, I do like doing things for my significant other on that day.  I think it’s nice to treat people to something special, but I also don’t limit myself to surprising my S.O. only on Valentine’s Day. 

I’m one of those people who likes to use gifts, usually small ones, to let people know that I’m thinking of them.  I used to buy one of my former boyfriends athletic shirts every once in awhile because he was constantly getting overheated in the summer and wearing the lightweight fabric made him feel a little less like he was dying.  It really didn’t matter the occasion.  I bought them if I saw they were on sale or if I went to Goodwill and happened to find one in his size.  I like to think that he appreciated the gesture and I’ve seen him wearing some of the shirts after we broke up (yes, we are still friends).

Back to Valentine’s Day.  I love being single on Valentine’s Day.  Love, love, love, LOVE being single.  It’s the one day of the year where a single person has absolutely zero social obligations.  Think about it: since you’re single, no one expects anything of you.  You could be happy or sad.  You are allowed to go out and party like it’s 1999 or sit at home in your pj’s watching bad romance movies and eating an entire gallon of ice cream.  No one cares what you are doing.  All the folks that are coupled up get so caught up in the whole holiday that they rarely think about their single friends beyond, “Oh, they probably won’t be doing anything special for Valentine’s Day.”

How many other times during the year can you honestly say that you can do whatever you want (within reason) and no one will think that you’re acting inappropriately?  How about your birthday?  Correct answer: Nope.  You are expected to do SOMETHING to celebrate, even if it’s intentionally sitting at home and doing nothing.  You’re doing nothing for your birthday. Not because you just don’t feel like doing anything because this nothing is different. This is birthday nothing. (Now say that last sentence to yourself as if you’re yelling, “This is Sparta!”  It makes the entire thing more epic.) Also, on your birthday, you are expected to play nice with others.  Oh, sure, you don’t have to invite people you don’t like to your celebration, whatever that ends up being, but say a relative sends you a terrible birthday gift.  What then?  You got it: you still smile and thank them while simultaneously trying to figure out how soon you can chuck it in the nearest garbage receptacle.  See? Social obligation.

How about other holidays?  I sincerely hope that I don’t need to elaborate the kinds of social obligations that come with Christmas, Hanukkah, Ramadan, Passover, Easter, Halloween, New Year’s, MLK Day, 4^th of July, Veteran’s Day, Thanksgiving, Mother’s/Father’s Day, et cetera.  Pretty much every holiday comes with certain norms and expectations.

That is why I feel that every single person should view Valentine’s Day as a special gift that only comes along once a year, courtesy of Hallmark, Hershey’s chocolates, and American consumerism. 

As a single person, you are given a “get out of jail free” card that allows you to behave as well or badly as you want without significant consequences.  If you want to take the “oh, woe is me” route, you can quietly implode while watching trashy movies and eating ice cream until you’re sick. If that happens, everyone will just think, “Aw, that’s too bad. They were so upset about not having someone special (unlike me because I am in a happy relationship) that they had a minor meltdown. Tsk tsk.” 

If you go a different direction and decide to go out and party like the world is ending, that is also an accepted way of coping with the dreadful shame of single-ness (single-dom?  Single-hood?).  You party, maybe make some poor choices, and almost always regret it the next day (don’t lie, you do too almost always regret it).  What do people think of that kind of self-destructive behavior? “It’s so sad that they did that, but who can blame them?  They weren’t thinking straight. It’s too bad that they don’t have someone in their life like me and my wonderful hubby-wubby muffy-face.  If they had someone, maybe they wouldn’t make such poor choices.“

No matter how you approach this as a single person, you come out ahead:

1. You save money (potentially)
2.  You get to be totally selfish and do whatever you want without having to consider other people
3. Like your married friends, you can look forward to eventually sharing your life with that special someone, but until then, you get to be as juvenile as you want to be
4. If you are still set on wanting to invest in the trappings of this holiday, you can buy flowers for yourself (and they will always be the flowers that you want) and a treat like chocolate (and all of the chocolates will be the ones that you like)
5. There are no expectations to live up to

Actually, #5 is an important one.  Think about those poor saps stuck on a date with a new relationship on Valentine’s Day.  How on earth do you celebrate?  On one hand, you could go all-out and hire a pilot to take you on a private jet to some fancy-pants restaurant and watch the sunset as you share dessert and then go out and make love under the stars.  Of course, would such a grand gesture set the tone for the rest of the relationship?  Realistically, for most people V-Day is less important than Anniversaries, birthdays, etc.  Will you now have to do something outrageous and expensive every time there’s a holiday?  How are you going to top something like that?

Then there are those folks who run in the opposite direction: they do nothing for Valentine’s Day or treat it just like any other day.  How might that set the tone for the future of this relationship?  In particular, how might that throw a wrench into things if one person wants something special while the other one wants to pretend that the holiday doesn't exist?  Ideally, it wouldn’t affect the long-term viability of the relationship in any meaningful way, but think about the kinds of social pressures that couples face on this holiday.  If you were to tell someone that you have been dating someone for two months and you aren’t planning anything special for Valentine’s Day, you can be sure that they will judge you, one way or the other.

Now picture someone asking you if you have plans for Valentine’s Day when you’re single.  You say you’re single and nine out of ten times what is their answer? I’m not sure about you, but most of the time when I tell people that I’m going to be single on Valentine’s Day, they express sympathy and then quickly drop the subject.  However, when I had a boyfriend on Valentine’s Day, I was always expected to have plans.  If nothing else, I knew that I would be expected to be with him that evening rather than doing anything else or spending time with other people.