Ladyfingers: Curing the V-Day Blues

There is something to be said when a holiday is commercially manufactured to emit feelings of love and adoration, yet has the capability of garnering feelings of the complete opposite.

It’s quite remarkable, especially for something that is not technically a public holiday in any country. That’s right, folks. Valentine’s Day is upon us and that means the pressure is on. The levels and layers of standards and expectations will either make you dizzy or have you reaching for the bottle and/or a vibrator. I’d say the majority of my past Valentine’s Day celebrations have been spent feeling shitty about myself and scoffing at anyone and everyone who wasn’t self-loathing with me. Can you blame the bitter? We didn’t bring this upon ourselves! That’s like having no prior weightlifting experience and showing up to a CrossFit competition. I can’t even confirm that CrossFit competitions actually exist because I am that far away from a life of fitness regimes, especially branded ones.

I digress, kind of. I’m comparing CrossFit to the years I spent despising the holiday. Just like washboard abs, I was only seeing love through all the gestures and chocolate boxes I wasn’t receiving on the 14th of February. I was single and I hadn’t fucked anyone close enough to the date, and everything I saw related to V-Day just reminded me that I should feel sorry for myself. Then 2011 rolls around and I’m thumbing through CrossFit selfies and pictures of all the adorable, vomit-inducing lengths my fellow social media-lites went to please their significant others. Someone was nice enough to create “Galentine’s Day,” a day where ladies celebrate ladies. Though I couldn’t help but feel that it was just my friends with boyfriends and girlfriends taking out their single friend (me) so I wasn’t at home eating an entire pizza alone. More often than not, I prayed the milk they sucked from Corporate America’s teat tasted as sour as I was inside.

I do not write all of these things in an attempt to have you believing the only thing that stopped that Valentine-saltiness was being in a relationship. That is not the entire case, but it does play a part in it. Also, unbeknownst to me, there was some sort of light at the end of a tunnel I refused to acknowledge (re: Blame “The Man!”). I had gone a majority of my life without experiencing what it was like to be someone’s Valentine. I spent those years subconsciously building expectations and creating scenarios that were just pieces of every commercial, info gram, song, meme and in between smashed together into one naive headspace (mine). Then when I finally got to experience what it was like to be with someone during the big day, it was a solid “eh.”

It was not until I learned to love myself—a lesson that I recently had to revisit and a lesson I’m sure will return in the future—that all the hoopla became tolerable. Shit, it became fun. Why was I going to let this one day upset me? As if I wasn’t single the other 365 days. All I’m saying is times have changed. While Hallmark’s marketing department continues to scheme for new ways to suck the money out of the consumers’ pockets, we will be building the resistance.

Did you know Valentine’s Day started as a form of rebellion? It’s time we bring the rebel back, baby. I’m talking handmade cards, homemade cookies and handwritten poems. We could have a real movement on our hands here, pun intended. No special someone? No problem! You are your special someone. No, this isn’t a self-help book. Three words: wine, dine and masturbate.

With that formula, in no particular order, your February 14th is a guaranteed good time. In a perfect world, we would spend this holiday having sex with a chocolate vagina or penis that cums money, but unfortunately Steve Jobs passed before he could invent that. Whatever you end up doing, whether it is with your bae, yourself or a stranger you met on Tinder, just remember this: I love you and if there’s one good thing that comes from Valentine’s Day, it’s the discounted candy on the 15th. Everyone knows candy is the greatest lover you and I will ever have.