At least, not a ‘real’ one. Back in year 10, there was a brief half an hour where I thought I’d lost my Valentine virginity. I opened my pencil case to find ‘Be my Valentine?’ scribbled on the inside – let’s just say there was more than a spring in my step and a big but coy smile on my face walking to the canteen that lunchtime.
It was only when I sat down at the usual table that played host to my crowd of friends that the coy smile took a turn into red-raw cheeks. No sooner had I brazenly whipped my pencil case out my bag and passed it under every pair of eyes around me than the giggles started. And then full-blown laughter. It had been one of them, and I was quickly enveloped by a good few pairs of arms whilst the blaze of my cheeks calmed down.
So, I’ve never had a ‘real’ Valentine – and was surprised (read: flattered) that someone asked ‘really?’ in the office when it came up in conversation yesterday. I mean, if I try hard enough (and I mean really hard) to make any sort of connection, then…
I’ve had a premature Easter egg, though I don’t know if we’d count that as A) I don’t remember if it was given this side of Valentine’s Day, and B) you’d almost get away with replacing a chocolate Santa with an Easter egg given how keen supermarkets are to get them on shelves, so it could’ve just been a happy coincidence.
I’ve received a belated Valentine’s card on my birthday, for my birthday (which is in April) from my only ‘real’ adult boyfriend – talk about killing two birds with one stone. (The heart killed there was mine, and it was a long, slow, and painful death. Romantic!)
I was written letters by my first actual boyfriend when I moved away for school, but now you know how hard I’m trying to find things to tag as ‘Valentine’s’ as this happened in September…
The point, friends, is that for some of us, the fourteenth of February really is like any other day. Well, almost. I’m too honest, too much of a sleeve-heart-wearer to say that I didn’t go out of my way to check out the extravagant, red, red, RED display of chocolate boxes Sainsbury’s had put on for its shoppers on Sunday. (I mean, just because I don’t have a Valentine doesn’t mean I can’t take advantage of the offers, right? Though I was greeted by a heart-shaped pizza in the next aisle, and that’s surely a step too far – and you’re definitely losing a fair amount of pizza! Love might be blind, but Gabs in the chilled aisle during a cost-crisis isn’t.)
Or, that I didn’t glance twice at the guy taking a lunchtime walk with a small bunch of roses in his hand – someone’s taken the ‘fail to prepare, prepare to fail’ motto to heart. But here I am, guessing they’re for his partner because it’s love-day eve, but they might not be. It could be a happy coincidence – his mum’s birthday, a token for a friend’s recent promotion. Maybe even to sit on the table that he eats his single man meals from every morning and every night.
So I’ve never had a Valentine, and I don’t know if I’d like one. More, I wouldn’t want to have to ‘do’ Valentine’s because that’s what we’re made to feel like we have to do to feel like our relationship fits in. Is valid. Is ‘real’. (The relationship I very much don’t have, that is.)
Who knows what I’d want – if I’d want – Valentine’s to look like if I were with someone. Would I be searching Vinted late at night for a cute red number to wear to dinner? Dropping oh-so-subtle hints about the Monica Vinader silver bracelet I’ve had my eye on all month – and did you know that they have 20% this week? If my partner pulled a heart-shaped pizza out the oven, would I suddenly go ‘poof!’ and transform into a marriage-pending, child-wanting woman? That last one’s the most doubtful. Let’s leave it that I don’t really know…
…and what I do know is this. With every Valentine’s Day that passes, so too does another 24 hours. That’s 24 hours for you to choose how you spend it – work and standard life aside. So if you’ve felt a little distant from your partner, then V-Day might be the no excuses allowed moment where you both make an effort to reconnect. If you’ve only been dating someone new for a few weeks and you REAAAALLY like them and want them to know, then V-Day could feel like a pretty fitting time.
And if you’re like me, where it’s another day waking up under the comfort of your weighted blanket, you might’ve already planned a long run in the evening V-Day air and now you’re 5 minutes away from taking a batch of flapjack out the oven to indulge in afterwards. (Come on, I’m too tight and not naïve enough to have actually given into the stacks of chocolate boxes on the Sainsbury’s Valentine’s display!)
But the final thing that I know, that I really, really believe, is this. I recently and ever so slightly touched on how I’m having to focus a lot of time on unlearning this year. It’s broad – my learning goes back almost 28 years (for the people at the back, my birthday’s in April!). The unlearning includes Valentine’s Day, from what it’s meant to me before and how I’ve let it make me feel, to how other people have made me feel about it and what I’d like my thoughts to be now.
Unlearning isn’t easy, and it doesn’t come fast. It’s a real, active effort to try and undo a lot of how you are. Why you are how you are. The parts of you that you could do with letting go of, and the parts of you that you should try and welcome more. I’m slowly starting to put ‘me’ back together in a way that makes me feel like ‘me’, happy about ‘me’, looking forward to spending the next year, five years, 50 plus years with ‘me’. Part of it involves a lot of active thinking, so mixing together the flapjack this evening (hardly distracting) I found myself taking a few minutes to really think about who I was this time last year, the year before, the year before that. Who I was dating. what they were like, how they made me feel. (I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – dating during the Six Nations doth not give you the ROI you’re convinced it will. Trust me.)
Whether I was actively ignoring the rage of angst in my tummy or I was a completely smitten and oblivious wreck, I’ve been seeing/with someone on Valentine’s Day for the last three years. But it was never acknowledged – it was ignored. I might never have had a ‘real’ Valentine, but I know that’s not how you’re supposed to feel.
So you know what? I’ve never felt better about Valentine’s Day than I have this evening (though the jury’s out as to how much influence the flapjack mix has had over this). I feel more at peace with being ‘the single one’. Man, I might even laugh if (when) someone makes the joke about the postman pushing extra cards through my letterbox tomorrow morning!
On the evening of 13th February 2024, I’m content and I’m happy. And I really hope that you, whether you’re also single or you’re in a new relationship or you’ve been married one, two, fifty years, are too. Because that’s really all Valentine’s Day comes down to, right? Feeling content with the person you are, and happy with the person you’re spending your time with.
You get to choose to do Valentine’s Day. And you also get to choose who with – or who without. I think that’s really important to remember.
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