Guess what? I detest Valentine’s Day. This may sound like something that a bitter single person would say (which is partially true in my case), but it’s true. Valentine’s Day just annoys me. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for showing your love to someone, but Valentine’s Day makes everything feel fake and forced. Instead of simply telling someone you love them, people feel obligated to spend a ton of money and feel bad when they don’t. Let me show you what I mean.

When we were still in elementary school, Valentine’s Day was so much fun. I remember this boy who liked me bought me a teddy bear and chocolate and I thought it was the sweetest thing. Everyone got little cards with candy and corny jokes written on the inside. We watched movies, played games, ate snacks, and just had a fun day. But once we got to middle school, and eventually high school, we realized it was so much more than sweet treats and little cards. It was stressful. Suddenly there was so much pressure to like someone and have them as your valentine for that year. As if self-love and the disgust of the opposite sex weren’t enough. Kids in my middle school were getting teddy bears as big as they were and roses. I, on the other hand, sat on a bench outside of the cafeteria and read “Samuel Blink and the Forbidden Forest” by Matt Haig. I tried to avoid looking up at the girls whose boyfriends took their mom’s credit card so they could buy their girlfriend a $20 stuffed animal. It made me laugh because of how ridiculous the whole thing was. And yet, it made me sad when I thought about how no one bought ME anything that year. 

Now, I’ve realized that the entire thing is a huge consumerist scam designed to make people feel bad about being single. According to Statista, in 2020 alone Americans spent approximately $27.4 BILLION on gifts for Valentine’s Day. We start seeing the cards and candies pop onto shelves in early JANUARY because it’s “never too early.” There is also the sickening idea of not spending enough on a present. It’s okay if you want to just buy someone flowers, but there’s always that one person who thinks they need to spend hundreds of dollars to make their significant other happy. To me, the entire thing lacks uniqueness. If you’re really going to show someone how much you love them, you don’t buy a $4 card from the grocery store that says “I love you” in it, especially one that 30,000 other people got that day.

Finally, my last reason to abhor Valentine’s Day is this: social media. It all comes back to social media. It upsets me when people take such a private moment and post it on Instagram or Snapchat, or when someone dates someone else just so they can get a gift and then dumps them a week or so after. The entire thing is ridiculous. My point is, Valentine’s Day is cute and all, but at the end of the day, the main reasons Valentine’s Day exists are to make single people feel bad and make money off of the suckers who want to spend a ton of money.

If you want to celebrate Valentine’s Day, feel free to do so. Obviously, I can’t stop you. I know how my Valentine’s Day is going to play out. I’m going to work that morning, where I’m going to see a bunch of couples come into a small café and order matching lattes, and wonder why on Earth I’m always so bitter on Valentine’s Day.