I don’t get out much. I’m a single parent, and I live a good 4 hours journey from family. My daughter is a bit too old for babysitting but a bit too young to be left alone while I go for an evening out (a combination of her being rather immature and hating to see me enjoy myself).
Anyway, my social life has to be packed into school holidays when I can take her to stay with my mom. I’ve been looking forward to my first child free day/evening, and then I realised it will be February the 14th.
I just want to go out and have some fun, but everywhere I look, pubs ‘n’ clubs are threating special Valentine’s promotions. I’m getting irritated at the thought of being made to feel inadequate because I haven’t got a partner in tow, and no doubt the rose sellers will be out in force …
The only consoloation is I won’t be at work and have to listen to smug colleagues saying things like “this time next year …” or “there’s someone out there, you just haven’t met him yet” or “how many cards did you get …”
OK, call me an embittered old cynic. Really, it’s ok. But I’d love to meet likeminded people, 22-45, GSOH …
You know, I don’t really even notice Valentine’s Day that much, and it doesn’t make me especially jealous. It’s just a holiday that doesn’t apply to me, like Grandparents Day or Yom Kippur.
But as it happens, Valentine’s Day is my school’s Book Day at the best bookstore in the city. They get a percentage of books sold that day, so I’ll go buy books, and watch my students perform.
I’ll probably catch the latest exhibit at the art museum, too.
But I haven’t heard people saying ‘Oh, you’ll find someone someday’ since I stopped saying ‘Gosh, I wish I had a Valentine.’
Well, I’m working most of the day, but I’m taking part in the “Love your libraries” fun run/walk (I’m doing the walk) before work that morning.
As for the evening, well…if we come up with something (that “we” being a group of single friends), then we’ll do it. If we don’t, I’ll go rent a movie or something or just hang out with the kitties and do classwork (it’s not like that doesn’t always need to be done).
Boycotting it. Face it, there’s no where you can go where you won’t be confronted with gurning couples slobbering all over each other and generally wanting a slap (yes, I’m single and bitter, do you wanna make something of it???), so you’re better off staying home and pampering yourself. Or, if you really must go out, have some fun with the afore-mentioned couples. Go up to the bloke, throw your drink in his face and shout “How could you do this to me? I’M CARRYING YOUR CHILD!!!”. Or go up to the woman, fling your arms around her and say “Babe! I haven’t seen you since the sex change, you look fab!”. Or go up to either one, shuffle your feet and look embarrassed and mutter: “Er, yeah, glad I ran into you, you, erm, you might wanna get yourself down the STD clinic and get checked out, ya’ know, just in case you’ve, erm, picked something up…” Then stand back and watch the fall out. That’s my idea of a Happy Valentines!
VD is a Saturday so I will follow my usual Saturday routine. Get up, drink coffee, smoke half a pack of cigarettes, get dressed, go to the bank, go to the barn and spend most of the day with the Wonder Pony. Go home, make dinner, watch tv. It’s just another day to me. If you feel you must DO something, why not ask several single friends over to your house for a gathering, and make sure it’s not a VD party or a broken hearts ball? Or go to the movies. Or bowling. There’s plenty of places you could go to that won’t be full of couples and roses.
I’m nearly 34, male, eternally single, and bitter and cynical as hell as I threw in the towel on dating once and for all. For me, Valentine’s Day will be just another day for the most part. To exhibit my sheer hatred against Valentine’s Day I will be wearing all black on the day itself and on the preceding day at work. I hate the day for the same reasons other people in this thread do, because it makes us single folks feel inadequate and inferior. I dread coming to work that day and seeing dozens of red balloons floating above various people’s cubicles. The only thing that would make me enjoy the day is to witness a couple having a big fight or a break-up, especially if it were because one of the partners didn’t spend enough money or put enough thought into some tacky, tawdry gift for his sweetie.
It makes me all teary-eyed with joy to see that there are others just as embittered as I.
Last year for Valentine’s, I drank tequila until I could no longer see. The year before that, I drank tequila and burned pictures of men I hope to never see again. The preceding years are lost in a haze of aforementioned tequila.
I have a friend who goes all-out with her Valentine’s plans, and makes sure I hear about every detail, from the two dozen roses her fiance sent her at work, to the new lingerie she bought herself, blah blah blah. I have to sit on my hands to keep myself from punching her in the face sometimes.
And if you happen to be one of those people who wear black on Valentine’s, and someone asks you why you’re not in the spirit, tell them you’re in the spirit of the Valentine’s Day Massacre. They’ll usually leave you alone at that point, if you do it with a suitably psychotic grin.
For those who don’t want to be bitter and snarky for the day, I say go to the movies, just nothing even remotely romantic.
Heading off to an all women’s spa (there may be couples, but it’s really not a place for hardcore PDA, so I doubt I’ll know that there are couples) and spending the evening reading crappy books while lounging around in heated rooms and pools, getting various treatments done until the whole horrid day is over - but at least I’ll have been professionally exfoliated.
I hate Valentine’s day. You’d think that it would be enough that those people have relationships… they also get a holiday to rub it in. Yeah, that’s fair.
Anywhere you go is full of couples (the movies free of couples? Not even close) and staying in just drives home the point that I’m staying in.
But if you do that you’re just buying into the whole thing! As single people we should be united in our boycott of this commercialistic and exploitative holiday. We should make a stand. In fact, I think we should start with a drive-by scowling in the “Dopers Valentines” thread over on MPSIMS.
What I don’t understand, unless you’ve just had a recent and messy breakup, is the urge to be bitter. Yes, I’ve been single for a while now. Yes, I’ve had some ugly breakups (and some not-so-ugly ones; I have exes whom I count among my close friends). And yes, I probably don’t want to go out to a fondue place and watch gushy couples feeding each other chocolate-dipped strawberries.
But even if you’re single, at least some of you must have other single friends, right? Why do you need a romantic partner to have a lovely Saturday evening? In the words of the Passover Seder, why is this night different from all other nights? My mom’s birthday is a couple of days after, so we may take her out or cook her dinner that night. Otherwise, I intend to hang out with some single friends, maybe cook something delicious (why do all the good recipes need to be saved for lovers? I happen to like warm liquid-center individual chocolate cakes!) and rent a good movie.
