Last week while I was teaching my evening class, my lecture was interrupted by the raised hand of one of my students. I say "interrupted" as her question was completely unrelated to the lecture material.
Student: "Um, I noticed on our syllabus it says we have class on Valentine's Day."
Me: "Uh-huh." So far, this wasn't a question.
Student: "Well, I have a reservation. So would I be marked as absent if I'm not here?"
Me: "Yes. The college does not recognize it as a real holiday." ::waiting for laughter to subside:: "But you do have Monday off for President's Day."
In the following days, the student would continue to talk about her reservation to no one and to everyone, as she wondered aloud.
The time: 7:30.
The time she had to arrive: 7:15.
The location: The Space Needle.
The reservation maker: Her live-in boyfriend. "He didn't know I'd have class when he made it!"
It was then that I realized that people don't hate Valentine's Day, they hate people like her that rub it in their face in the middle of their seemingly harmless public speaking class with an irrelevant comment about the fact that she is in a relationship, possibly reminding others around her, that they are not.
Done. Next world problem to solve? I got this Obama.
People like my student, the overwhelming card displays at Target with oversized chocolate hearts the size of throw pillows that one person really shouldn't eat solo (shut down throw pillow sized chocolate heart sales, shut down obesity), Kay jeweler commercials, and that annoying woman at the office that sits next to you and gets a dozen red roses delivered to her, these are the reasons people loathe the arrival of February 14th. Who knows if your co-worker pulled a Cher from 'Clueless' and had those roses delivered to herself? There's really no way of knowing, people. Unless you check the handwriting on the card and see if it matches her signed timesheet.
That's why people hate Valentine's Day because if you are single, it seems like everyone else is in a relationship.
Single people, listen up. Just because somebody's Facebook status declares their love for their fiancee and their Instagram captures the candlelit dinner they're having from the Space Needle, doesn't mean that their life is better than yours or that everything is one gigantic-chocolate-heart-eating-happy-time (seriously, shut it down). Things are not always as they appear. Two years ago if you walked into my apartment on February 14th, it would have been natural to assume the red roses on my kitchen countertop were from a boyfriend, when in fact, they were roses I took from atop Papa's casket when we said goodbye to him earlier that day.
Things are not always as they appear.
Boyfriend or not, I can't be mad at a day, but I can be irritated with people...which is really no different than if it's February 13th or March 31st. It's just another collection of numbers that visits for 24 hours and passes just as its fellow brethren did the day before and will in the days after. You choose how you spend those hours; hating or loving. Celebrate the people you love and let them know about the space they fill with joy in your heart whether it's your girlfriend, husband, son, niece, or friend.
Take joy in the fact that you have a beating heart to be able to hate a day so much. And if that doesn't work, it will be February 15th before you know it. And you know what that means...half-off all candy day. Proceed with caution.
