Students deal with heartbreak on Valentine's Day

Love hurts, and Valentine’s Day doesn’t help matters.

Valentine’s Day is Saturday, but for many students, there’s no reason to celebrate.

Sophomore Chelsea Rigdon said she once would see couples receiving attention and flowers on Valentine’s Day and would wonder when it’d be her turn.

“I used to buy myself flowers to feel better,” she said.

All year round she wondered whether she was even “playing the same game.”

She said it got pretty discouraging, but after a while she got used to it.

“Life is not a Kate Hudson movie. It’s not just going to come along and fall into your lap,” Rigdon said.

She isn’t alone in her loneliness.

Valentine’s Day or not, relationship issues are common reasons students come to Counseling and Psychological Services, said Nancy Stockton, CAPS director.

But easy solutions to heartbreak don’t exist. Breakups and unattainable crushes can be painful.

“We encourage students to keep up with their regular routine,” Stockton said. She said students should also leave some time to deal with the pain.

A person might blame themselves excessively, wonder what mistakes they made and refuse to let go when dealing with their heartbreak.

Trying to be logical by thinking “we were so perfect for each other” when a relationship is clearly over will just add to the misery, Stockton said.

The worst thing to do, Stockton said, is turn to drugs and alcohol, and the best is to accept what’s happened rather than fight the pain.

When Rigdon has a crush that doesn’t work out, she said she’ll cry a little, watch either a funny or sad movie and eat ice cream.

“It just feels better when you eat it right out of the carton with a spoon,” Rigdon said.
Other people take different approaches to relationships.

Senior Matt Boeglin said failed crushes and ended relationships don’t really affect him.
“If it wasn’t meant to be, it wasn’t meant to be,” he said.

He said he remains detached from the girls he dates by keeping his dating life and the rest of his life separate. A serious relationship just isn’t for him.

“I’m not really ready for anything like that at this point in my life,” Boeglin said.

He said the most heartbreak he’s felt was when his dog died.

“It pretty much sucked,” he said.

Both Rigdon and Boeglin said Valentine’s Day is too commercialized.

Valentine’s Day started off as a good idea, Rigdon said, but commercialism ruined it.

Rigdon said she doesn’t know exactly what she wants from a relationship or Valentine’s Day – only what society wants her to.

“You start thinking, ‘What can I do differently? What can I do differently?’” she said. But she said she realized it isn’t her –  there wasn’t anything she could do.

“I’ll just buy myself flowers again,” she said. “It’ll be fun.”