I Hate Valentines Day

So after a lot of writing about how life's really great, here's what's not.

I have been involved with someone virtually every valentines day for at least the past five years, before that at least a few consecutive years. I have never received a real Valentines Day card, done anything romantic or had anyone do anything particularly nice. Valentines Day is a cruel reminder to people who are single of what they may be missing out on; it's strangely crueler to be made to feel as though there is something wrong when you do have someone and it passes by unnoticed. It is a subtle feeling of unworthiness, of not being loved. My valentines days have not been poorly chosen gifts or awkwardly worded cards, they have been completely ignored.

Valentines Day before I ever dated anyone, or for the few single undergrad years, was less depressing, more hopeful. It was imagining how it could be, the potential for someone to like you so much it consumed them, the expression of it; that they took pleasure in expressing it. It's not about the grand gesture, it's about the small one; the handwritten note, the well selected mix tape, the tiny perfect cupcake in an unexpected place, the quiet dinner at home, that small objet that says I know you well. It is because people consume me that I wish I was consuming, because I am full of unspent letters and mix tapes and gestures grand and small.

[Today, in my bag, there is something carefully constructed that more than anything I just want to throw away, so I can pretend like I didn't have the compulsion. Unrequited love with someone you already have is a bitch.]

I use hating valentines day as a prophylactic to stop the disappointment. If you say it before it happens, then it makes what doesn't happen your own doing, a perverse recognition of what you wanted anyways. I have tried the alternatives, being slightly specific or not mentioning it.

Every fight I have with you is because I don't feel like you care