Valentine’s Day is just around the corner once again. There are whole sections of stores dedicated to heart-shaped pillows, stuffed animals, cards, and chocolate; the ads online and in media are urging us to get a special something for our loved ones, and opinions on Valentine’s day are flooding our timelines.

That’s what I think makes Valentine’s day the most unique of all the holidays – the broad, loud, and strong opinions everyone has and shares about it. Weeks before the day even arrives, a whole fuss is made about the holiday and we hear the same phrases year after year.

“It’s a Hallmark holiday. It emphasizes love to make you spend your money on meaningless things.”

“I don’t have a Valentine this year. :(“

“I don’t need a day out of the year to prove that I love you.”

“It’s a holiday designed to make single people feel bad and people in relationships feel important.”

You get it. You’ve heard it all before. Here’s the thing, yeah, Valentine’s day isn’t special, not necessarily, but the only thing I find more ridiculous than the notion of Valentine’s day’s lack of importance is the stress on being defeated by the holiday.

Allow me to let you in on a little secret: Just like any other holiday, Valentine’s day is whatever you make of it. We all have a general understanding about what Christmas means and is supposed to look like, yet we all have our own unique family traditions that we partake in at that time of year. Same goes for Halloween and St. Patrick’s Day, and the rest of them. If you believe that Valentine’s day is a day to make people who aren’t in love feel unworthy, then that’s what it’s going to look like for you.

Valentine’s day is a holiday designed to celebrate love. Sure, there is global emphasis on it being romantic love, but that doesn’t have to be what it is for – if you don’t want it to.

When I was a little girl, my mom would get my sister and I pink teddy bears and cards on Valentine’s Day. She did this because she loves us, and she decided she wanted to do something special for us on the holiday for love. When we were in school, we used to make little Valentine’s cards for every single kid in our class, and we would deposit them into our little Valentine’s Day mailboxes that we made in school prior to the event. Remember that? Personally, I loved that event in school! I was equally as excited to hand out my Valentine’s cards as I was to receive them. There is no reason why Valentine’s Day can’t be some rendition of that for you now. You have the power of choosing how you want to celebrate love on Valentine’s Day, so why choose to be hurt or indifferent or angry when the day finally shows up?

I’m currently in a wonderful relationship that I am proud to be in, and I’m about to experience my second Valentine’s Day with him. He and I are both of the opinion that Valentine’s Day doesn’t have to matter and neither of us have put any emphasis on the importance of that day. We don’t really acknowledge when the day is growing nearer, and we don’t stress about needing to prove our love to each other on that day specifically. Throughout my entire life, I’ve never seen the point in putting weight on that day’s need to be particularly special.

Last year on Valentine’s Day, my boyfriend cautiously confirmed with me that I didn’t find any significance in the holiday. I insisted and assured him that I don’t see the need in highlighting love and gifts on that day specifically and then he said, “good, because I didn’t get you anything.” We laughed about it together and then I walked into our closet to find a giant teddy bear, a shark stuffed animal with “I Chews You” embroidered into its side, heart-shaped aviator-style sunglasses, flowers, and a handwritten letter complete with a hidden acrostic poem that spelled out a joke. Months prior, I mentioned in passing one time that I wanted to have heart-shaped aviator-style sunglasses. I had told him in the past that I had always wanted a giant teddy bear that was as big as me. His style of humor often comes out in the form of puns. Every part of that gift was tailored to him, to me, and to our relationship. Even the lead-up of underlining the insignificance of the holiday added to the delight of the gift and the surprise. This is what I want you to take away from that story: it was not February 14^th that made that moment special, it was him.

Of course, him making me feel special hasn’t been reserved for only Valentine’s day, and I’ve heard that point brought up a lot; that you shouldn’t need a holiday to make someone feel loved. Sure, that’s sound, but that argument could be made for any holiday. Gratitude is not reserved for only Thanksgiving, sharing and joy is not reserved only for Christmas, luck is not reserved only for St. Patrick’s Day, and fear and the dead are not reserved only for Halloween.

The spirit of Christmas implies sharing, giving, and togetherness, but it is not the only time of the year we exercise these values. The same amount of fondness, appreciation, and generosity that exists in my heart at Christmas time is just as prominent inside of me at any other time of any given year. That is the same for me as it is everyone else. Still, year after year, we set aside time around Christmas to celebrate and accentuate those things as we partake in the holiday.

We don’t need Valentine’s Day to express love, but that doesn’t mean we should be insulted that there is a particular day to celebrate it. We celebrate every other holiday in a way that best suits us and there is no reason that that same format can’t be applied to Valentine’s Day, too.

It’s not the 25^th of December nor the 31^st of October nor the 17^th of March that makes Christmas, Halloween or St Patrick’s day special – it’s you, and what you do with it.

It’s not the 14^th of February that makes Valentine’s Day special, it’s you – and what you do with it. If what you believe is that Valentine’s Day is a holiday designed to make a profit off love, or to make single people feel inadequate, then that’s how you will feel. That’s how you will ruin that day for yourself and that’s how you will guarantee your sadness or anger or grief or defeat on that day.

I have never believed that Valentine’s Day necessarily needs to be special, but I am sick of people feeling lesser-than on that day as a result of how they allowed the holiday to make them feel. There is no reason why anyone should ever feel knocked down on Valentine’s Day. That is equally as true as how we don’t need to have Valentine’s Day in order to express love.

I am in a happy, healthy, and loving relationship now, but that hasn’t always been true. The kinds of Valentine’s Days I’ve experienced in the past has been vast.

I have been in a toxic relationship where I walked on eggshells and I was entirely consumed by fear. When Valentine’s Day came around, it didn’t make me feel loved. In fact, I don’t even remember what happened on Valentine’s Day that year.

I have been in a relationship that simply wasn’t best suited for me. On Valentine’s day, I got flowers and decorations and chocolates… but, it didn’t feel like it was done ‘for me.’ It felt like he did it because he thought he was supposed to. Valentine’s Day didn’t make me feel loved that year, either.

I was never really in the dating scene. Every relationship I’ve been in began as a friendship. Back when I was still navigating my way through discovering how falling in love worked, I attempted dating – sort of. I’ve only ever been on two dates outside of a relationship, and both of them were only first dates. Both fell on Valentine’s Day; once when I was sixteen and once when I was seventeen. In both instances, the person that sat across from me at the restaurant was practically a stranger, so Valentine’s Day didn’t make me feel loved on either of those dates. In fact, that’s what made it so difficult for me to understand why so many people put such stress on having a date for Valentine’s Day, even when they were not in a relationship, because in both of those experiences, the fact that it was Valentine’s Day felt meaningless by the end of the date.

Particularly on the date when I was sixteen, I was in good company. He made me laugh and the environment he created was comfortable and he was kind, but still, in the grand scheme of things, I didn’t know him. That date could have happened on any other day and it would have felt identical. In fact, if I instead spent that day with someone who I already knew loved me, like my sister for example, I probably would have had a better ‘Valentine’s Day’ experience.

Valentine’s Day doesn’t make you feel loved, but it shouldn’t make you feel unloved either, which brings me to this:

I have had more experience being single on Valentine’s Day than I have had otherwise. Never once did I feel unworthy for being single on Valentine’s Day. That being said, never once did I feel unworthy for being single.

In marketing, romantic love is displayed as your shot at a Happily Ever After. We see this kind of marketing year-round in things like dating apps and jewellery stores, and this kind of marketing, of course, becomes far more prevalent as Valentine’s Day draws nearer. Unfortunately, this type of marketing feeds into insecurities and plants a seed to crave companionship and it spikes a surge in a search for connection, but true love doesn’t ever bloom from desperation. I don’t believe you will ever find a perfect romantic ally if you make finding one a priority. Too often, when we believe that we need love, we settle for attention. We don’t realize that it’s happening though, we insist that we’ve set a bar and we’ve established our standards and boundaries, but then we overlook red flags or simple disconnects in personality traits when we emphasize a need to be in love and find a person that checks off enough of our boxes. In fact, those checklists are often what cause us to hang onto someone that isn’t compatible. We try to prove to ourselves and our friends that this person is right for us by verbalizing and re-establishing the direct matches between the human being and our predetermined list and then we clutch onto that person because of how they look on paper, but… falling in love isn’t checking off boxes. Of course, it’s a good idea to have a certain understanding of what characteristics you’re attracted to, but the world isn’t a build-a-partner workshop and chances are, the love of your life isn’t going to look like the idea of them you’ve drawn up in your head.

I’ve always been attracted to men with especially long hair; my boyfriend has a buzz cut.

I’ve always been attracted to musicians; my boyfriend doesn’t own a single instrument.

I thought I needed someone who understood obscure art, passionate emotions, and deep abstract thinking; my boyfriend is into mechanics and his way of thinking is primarily logical and straight-forward.

That being said, I have never found anyone as attractive as I find him. It’s not even close! If he is a Van Gogh, then those long-haired musicians were a Nathan Pyle. I have also never felt as understood by anyone as I do by him. He made me realize that I didn’t need someone who mirrored my way of thinking to understand my mind. I just needed someone who wanted to know who I am.

That check list you’ve made up; that catalogue of standards and boundaries, the only things it should contain are values and principles. More importantly, they should be values and principles that you uphold and adhere to, because it is unreasonable to expect qualities in someone else if you can’t abide by them yourself.

I can’t recall exactly how it’s worded, but there’s been a phrase going around for some time now that goes something like, “in order to be loved, you must first love yourself.” I’ve seen a lot of outrage on this idea. A lot of people are angry that the narrative of ‘you are unworthy of love if you are unhappy’ is being pushed. Truthfully, I don’t think that’s what this idea is intending to say.

Of course you can be loved if you have demons. Of course you can be loved if you don’t like what you see in the mirror, and of course you can be loved if your heart is broken. Circumstances waver all the time and so does our emotional state. We all make mistakes, and we all experience grief, guilt, and shame. To varying degrees, there has been probably at least one time in the landscape of our lives where we haven’t been proud of the person we were, or the choices we made. These things, of course, do not make us undeserving of love.

I think this idea should be framed differently. We’re looking through the wrong lens for how to love ourselves. Have you thought deeply before about the notion that we can love someone – but not like them? This implies that we can care endlessly about someone but feel uncomfortable or disappointed in the choices they’ve made or the kind of person they’ve shaped themselves into. This idea can work the same for ourselves as it does for other people. I did not like myself when I began loving myself. I was ashamed and embarrassed of the person I had become. I was engulfed in guilt and anxiety as a result of my choices and the experiences they had led me to. I was living in emptiness for a long time and I was nauseated by who I was and what I found I was capable of. I didn’t like who I was, and it took me a long time to begin loving myself. Even after I loved myself, I continued to dislike who I was. Here’s the difference: liking is an opinion based on the evidence at hand. Loving is caring regardless of opinion, and the best way to exercise caring is by taking care. I began to take care of myself. I wanted to be happy and so I started fighting for it. I began defining my morals and my values and then I began practicing implicating them into my life. Understanding what is good is far easier than abiding by it. Furthermore, understanding what is good is easier than understanding what is good for you. Through intensive deep thinking and trial and error, I discovered what is good for me, then, I deemed my integrity vital as I began practicing upholding my values. I slipped in my consistency for the first while, but eventually, my values became habit and by loving myself, I began liking myself. (For clarity: I began liking who I am, I continue(d) to dislike who I was.)

It was after I began loving myself; after I developed my values, and after I created purpose in my life that I found and built genuine true love with someone else. That is what I think the saying is implying. When you don’t like yourself and you don’t love yourself, you can absolutely still find companionship, but there is a far lesser chance of it being genuine love that is consistently in your best interest and will have longevity. When you don’t love yourself and you seek love from someone else, especially if you view a relationship as a need, you often settle for attention – even if you don’t realize it in the moment. As I said earlier, often, you don’t realize it. However, even if you don’t like yourself, you stand the best chance of stumbling into meaningful, long-lasting, and genuine love if you are loving yourself first. In other words, if you are taking care of yourself.

In marketing, romantic love is displayed as your shot at a Happily Ever After, and the truth is that that idea is absurd and ridiculous. You are in complete control of your Happily Ever After. A relationship is an add-on, a plug-in, a feature. You don’t need to fall in love in order to be happy. In fact, relying on believing that love will make you happy will only cause you to be less happy no matter what unfolds for you next. If you don’t find that love you’re seeking, you’ll feel defeated by your beliefs. If you do find that love and you expect it to make you happy, you will find it falls short and your attempts to extract happiness from them will likely sabotage your relationship, even if it could have otherwise been the perfect circumstance for you.

A relationship can better your life, but only if you’ve established happiness, or at least the journey towards it, for yourself first. A relationship is an add-on, a plug-in, a feature. It should amplify, not create. You are solely responsible for the core of your happiness, and therefore romantic love being your chance at a Happily Ever After is absurd and ridiculous. You are your chance, and you create that chance by taking care of yourself. You plant the seed, and you grow the roots. Romantic love is a watering can, it can only help to grow a seed if it has already been planted. Romantic love can make your tree grow at a faster rate, it can make the flowers more vibrant and it can make the leaves lusher and fuller, but it cannot plant the seed.

Further – here is something that is inevitable: you’re going to find someone that gives you butterflies. Regardless of your state of mind, your circumstances, your location, your job, your motivation, your ideas, your beliefs, your values, your hobbies, your wishes, your anything… you’re going to crush on somebody. Eventually. It’s going to happen, just as it has happened before. Catching feelings doesn’t rely on looking for love. It doesn’t rely on how much you like yourself and it doesn’t rely on what you’ve prioritized in your life. It just happens. Stressing the need to be in love is irrational because regardless, you’re going to fall into it… at some point. Even if that next person breaks your heart, or you fall out of love with them, or you realize you don’t even think you liked them in the first place, guess what? You’re going to do it all over again someday. Eventually, someone different will give you butterflies, too. No matter what, that will continue to happen, unpredictably, forever, or until you find someone that doesn’t stop giving you butterflies. So… Why worry so much about something that is going to happen; something that is going to keep happening regardless of the results from last time it happened? Some of the heartbreaks you’re going to experience will be far more damaging than others, but that isn’t a reason to write off love; it’s the reason why it’s so important that you continue to love yourself. You can be happy without love, and you will be happy if you’re consistent and determined to love yourself. You can be happy without love forever, in fact, because the core of your happiness comes only from you. A relationship is an add-on, a plug-in, a feature. It is unfathomably wonderful when you stumble upon a pure and genuine example of it, but it’s not worth worrying about when you don’t have it at all.

Therefore, it’s okay to be single on Valentine’s Day. On February 14^th, reconstruct the holiday to be best fit for you. Give tiny cards with Scooby-Doo on the front to your friends, call your mom and tell her you love her, or write a poem in your group chat. On February 14^th, celebrate the love that exists in your life already, and maybe, make it the day you take your first steps in loving and taking care of you.