Why I Personally Enjoy Being Single on Valentine’s Day

Posted on the 13 February 2014 by Neilmonnery @neilmonnery

I haven’t written anything about dating in months. Either that means I am on the quiet doing exceptionally well on this front and have chosen not to write about it as not to jinx it or absolutely sod all is happening so there is nothing to write about, I’ll let you have a think about that for a minute.

Yeah it’s the latter of the two. I mean seriously…

Anyway tomorrow is the day for couples to feel pressurised into being romantic and for those with a secret crush on someone to kinda reveal themselves in a ‘well I’ll dip my toe in the water but will have plausible denial if it all goes tits up’ kind of way. So awesome.

I have quite brilliantly managed to go through my whole life without either being in a relationship on this day or trying to tell someone I was romantically interested in them. Impressive stuff. Although to be fair you could go through pretty much every day of the calendar and I would be able to fulfill both of those criteria.

The point of this post though isn’t to lament but to rejoice. Valentine’s Day is just a Hallmark holiday designed to split the Christmas and Easter markets. Surely people in love don’t need a special day dedicated to the notion that they are in love? Surely they would be in love all the time and therefore make a special effort on more than just one occasion a year when dictated to by the calendar?

I love and rejoice the fact that I’m single at this time of year. I imagine it must be a pretty stressful situation for a significant number of couples as they feel the need to be forced into having certain feeling amplified. I’m notoriously the type of person that goes against the grain, if someone tells me I should be feeling x then I’ll automatically veer to y. I have been like this for many years. I don’t like to be told how to feel and anyone telling or cajoling me into feeling a certain way will in all likelihood not find themselves successful.

I remember friends in the past lamenting being single on Valentine’s Day, like they had failed and they used to say how unfair it was when those who weren’t single publicly showed off how happy they were in a relationship. It annoys me that people feel like that thanks to this stupid holiday, thanks society. Fair enough you might think but when they got into a relationship then they would do just the same and it always made me laugh, then when they split up with their partner and were single the next year they would moan about it all over again. Hilarity.

It seems that Valentine’s Day is often not about being romantic with your partner and showing them how much you love them, but in these Social Media times it is more about showing off how happy you are to the world, certainly for the younger generation. Why do we as a race have that urge to show off how happy we are? Is it to show everyone one else or is it to show the one we are meant to love?

Answers on a postcard.

So here we are. For those who are single then than your lucky stars that you aren’t going to be under pressure to show how much you like your partner. One thing I’ve found in life is that pressure situations lead to heightened tensions and heightened situations that go well are terrific, heightened situations where things do not go well lead to sad times.

There is absolutely naff all wrong with being single. Naff all. Sure if the right person walked into my life I probably wouldn’t be shedding a tear but there is nothing to feel down about. It is just a day designed to make money. It shouldn’t influence your feelings or outlook. So for me tomorrow is just Friday, it’ll be the same as most other Friday’s (although I don’t need to do any food shopping so I might not walk to the supermarket), I shall wake up, I shall work, I shall eat, I shall drink, I shall shower, I’ll watch some TV and I’ll not care about how I’m not doing this with anyone or have any feelings for anyone and how no-one has these feelings for me, it just won’t even register on my radar.

What really gets my goat though is the advertising, I saw some greatest hits record being advertised earlier as the ‘perfect gift for Valentine’s Day’ – what horse expletive. I’m pretty sure the croonings of some singer is not the ideal way to tell someone that you love them. Seriously. God it annoys me so much. I hate the commercialisation of everything. Do advertisers not think we have our own minds?

*seethes*

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