I write this for me and all of the single people out there who are being sad this Valentine's Day. And by sad, I don't mean upset, mopey, or any other synonym; I am referring to Singles Awareness Day. (People in relationships, you may read this as well, I guess.)
It's that time of year when we despise the color pink, eat chocolates that we bought for ourselves, and peel petals off roses, saying, "he loves me, he loves me not," and always ending up on an even number of petals. Or if you're a math nerd like me, you draw a polar rose on your TI-84 Plus Silver Edition calculator to give to yourself. (Try it out, you have to go to polar mode and type in r=a∙cos(kθ) for integral values of a and k. But I completely digress...)
I've been single for every Valentine's Day. I may have had a "girlfriend" in elementary school for the day, but I mean, I wouldn't say that exactly counts. More importantly, this is my first Valentine's Day being out, so I guess this could have been a special day for me, but sadly, 'tis not. But I make the very astute observation about my dating pool that has an impact on how Valentine's day works for me:
It's small.
Naturally, my dating pool is approximately a tenth of a straight person's. Being stuck on a college campus makes that smaller. So what am I to do in a situation like this? Well I often take out my anger in being single by blaming myself. I blame my looks, my personality, my nerdy awkwardness, my everything, and my little downward spirals do not help my esteem any further.
Allow me to offer this advice, to myself and everyone else: Don't blame yourself. You are absolutely wonderful in every way possible, and being single is great! To quote one of my favorite playwrights, Oscar Wilde, "To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance."
So celebrate Valentine's Day with yourself because Oscar Wilde says so, and he surely cannot be wrong. And if you still don't believe one of the great playwrights of the nineteenth century, then believe him:
So to you couples on this Valentine's Day, enjoy yourselves, and have fun! But to those of us who are too busy, on parole, hunting, or free agents, let's all be SAD together! Our time will come, we just have to wait.
