5 perfectly valid reasons to hate Valentine’s Day
No, it’s not just single people being jealous
For many decades, people have been confessing their love to each other on February 14th. But recently, Valentine’s Day has started evoking a different feeling — hate. Many young people dislike Valentine’s Day. If you’re one of them, you’re definitely not alone. If you’re not, well, here are five reasons why the haters have a point.
You’re single — and hard on yourself
Some single people take Valentine’s Day just like any other day and go about their business. For others, it’s not that easy, and there’s no shame in that. If you are single and everyone around you is talking about date nights and dinner reservations, you might feel like you’re missing out on something great. More than that, you start digging deeper and wondering why you are the single one and not the one who’s rushing to get roses in the morning. And that, dear friends, ties up to a dangerous idea that some people are good enough to be in a relationship, and others are not. That’s just not how it works, even if it might be tempting to believe it.
Love should be celebrated all year long
“Some may think, does there really need to be a day dedicated to this, when couples should connect on the other days?”, says Donna T. Novak of Simi Psychological group. And as far as we are concerned, that’s a perfectly valid point. Love isn’t supposed to be about one grand gesture on February 14th. It requires effort and dedication all 365 days of the year. If everything kids know about love comes out of Valentine’s Day drama and Netflix shows, well, chances are they won’t know how to build a healthy relationship when the time comes. So, if you want to celebrate love, please, suit yourself — and do it on any day you feel like it.
It’s marketing, baby!
The anti-capitalists’ favorite argument against Valentine’s Day is that it’s just a marketing ploy to make people buy more flowers, gifts, wine bottles, lingerie, or anything else that might make their significant others happy. That’s why when we see an Instagram post of someone holding 100 roses, we immediately think that their partner must really love them. Because that’s how love works, doesn’t it? Of course, it doesn’t. But if we just focused on our words and actions instead of material possessions and gifts, no one would profit from that. Well, therapists, maybe, but still. So, companies create special Valentine’s Day campaigns to persuade people to buy more. As Janell O’Leary, the founder of Elite Dating Managers, puts it, “Being single has many benefits but being single doesn’t have a holiday as there isn’t gift giving and most holidays involve consumerism on some level”.
Trigger warning: Love
Unless you’re in a perfectly peaceful, healthy relationship, all that focus on romance may be really frustrating or even painful. If you have just gone through a painful breakup, seeing everyone talk about love and relationships can be really difficult. It’s as if you’ve been diagnosed with a chocolate allergy, and next thing you know — there’s chocolate all around you, and everyone keeps saying how great it is. Valentine’s Day is also confusing for people who are kind of, but not really in a relationship. According to a writer Girish Dutt Shukla, “Even those cheesiest couples on the verge of a break up can get back together during Valentine’s week. This does not necessarily mean that they hate each other, but they are definitely not in love either”.
The pressure to make it perfect is just too much
Finally, people who are in relationships also have many reasons to dislike Valentine’s Day. If single people can just ignore it and go on with their lives as if it were a normal day, people who have partners do not have that option. Instead, they feel tons of pressure to make this day as perfect as possible and meet all of their partners’ expectations. The worst part is that it’s practically impossible. When we see all those happy couples in movies and ads, our expectations of Valentine’s Day become unreasonably high. The result? Disappointment, anger, arguments, and many other not-so-pretty things.
