Valentine haters gonna hate

I was invited to three Anti-Valentine’s Day parties this week. It seems all of my friends are on the same wavelength, which is tuned to the “Valentine’s Day is stupid” channel. 

I love this station — eff consumerism, eff Hallmark Card-defined love, eff fondue restaurants, to list just a few of its greatest hits. 

Valentine’s just seems like a weird day to have a special date. Isn’t that what your anniversary or birthday is for? Or, like, Saturdays?

Plus, if you celebrate the day after everything is marked down 60, 90, 1,000 percent.

Admittedly, I’ve never had a Valentine’s Day Date, so I could just be another Poor Soul Who Will Never Understand the Meaning of True Love. I could be, but I no longer live with any cats so it’s pretty unlikely.

Going on dates is fun. Making it a special date, like where you wear something besides sweatpants, is fun. Getting presents is fun.

Going to a stereotypically romantic place on a Thursday around the same time as a million other people, however, does not sound fun. Freaking out about what to get someone you just started dating last week because it’s Valentine’s Day does not sound fun. 

All that pressure to be open and romantic sounds terrifying and horrible.

As we all know, not everybody performs well under pressure. If you get my meaning. If you know what I’m saying. I’m winking right now. See?

Despite finding the holiday incomprehensible, I’m wary of the haters. These are people who are more extreme in their disdain than I. I’m half a hater; these people mainline ‘hater-ade.’ 

They want to show how happy they are being single on the one day no one cares. They want to protest because they feel like society is trying to take away their spirit. Maybe this is their first sans-Valentine Valentine’s Day in recent memory. 

A cool thing about Valentine’s Day is that it is not required. You’re not going to get an F in your sociology class for not attending and writing up a page on the experience. No one’s going to cart you off to spinster jail.

In objecting so much to the concept, some people are actually revealing how much they wish they had a date. 

Either do Valentine’s Day or don’t, but be honest with yourself about it. If you like the holiday, celebrate however you want, and be honest if your disdain arises because of a pronounced sense of loneliness. 

If you don’t like it, be honest about that, too, and maybe you won’t have one of those sitcom debacles about someone who said they didn’t want a gift but really did want a gift and now the world is ending. 

If only I had someone willing to “be mine” this week — I would probably forget that it was Valentine’s Day and buy myself some Chipotle because that’s what I do every week.

­— casefarr@indiana.edu