Valentine’s Day.

Yep that’s all I’m going with in the title. Short but sweet (just how I like my women – oooooooooo).

Today I went to ASDA to get my upply of juice. Yes there are nearer stores but they don’t have the variety. If I want orange then I can walk over the road but if I want White Grape & Peach or Orange & Mango or Wild Blueberry then it is a longer trek. So I went there at lunchtime and walked in to see no fewer than seven women who worked there by the entrance around the flowers section. Helping men telling them what to buy. Walking past them I glanced to the self-scan tills and they were full of men – both young and old with flowers. I would say I was full of joyous emotion but it would be a lie.

Nothing wrong with romance says I but when society is forcing romance on to people then I think there is an issue. I have always been one of those people that doesn’t celebrate things when society tells me to. I don’t care about my birthday and I don’t care about Christmas. It doesn’t need Mother’s or Father’s Day for my parents to know that I love them. It just doesn’t. And yet society tells us that on those days we have to do something special to show that you care. Why?

The same comes on this festival that is going on right now. I’m single and I wonder if I was in a relationship how I’d feel about the situation. Would I be more focused on my hatred of being told how to feel and how to act or would my desire to show the person that I was with that I cared about them? I can’t answer that question straight out but I have an inkling as to which way I’d go and if you know me then you have the same inkling.

Valentine’s Day has just become a commercial day when we are told how to act and how to feel. If you are single then you get depressed. If you are in love then you are as happy as can be. If you are in love and your partner makes no effort then you feel anger towards them.

Maybe I just don’t get it. Maybe I’m just naive and don’t understand the ways that things work (a few people have called me naive recently) and maybe I just filled with resentment that I’m not all loved up. I’d dispute all three of those points but they are out there in case people want to believe it.

There is nothing wrong at all with being single. I get so saddened by friends who stay in unhappy relationships because they are scared of being single or of never finding anyone else. Both men and women that I know are in these situations. It’s like being in a relationship is a status symbol that we should all look up to. Well do you know what? It isn’t. I hate the idea of status symbols anyway. On days like these everywhere you look you are told that being in love is a great thing (which no doubt it is) but if you aren’t then you are missing something.

I’m 28 and as far as I recall I have never received a Valentine’s Day card from anyone serious (I have received some joke ones in the past) and it doesn’t bother me one jot. All I got through the letterbox today was the new Thomson Local. I personally do not feel any anger or resentment towards those in love but I do have anger and resentment that people are forced into doing things that they don’t want to do by society and the fact that that same society is making people feel lonely and depressed. Should we ever be in a situation where we feel bad because of who we are? I don’t think so.

Que Sera Sera and all that. It just makes me sad that this day and this occasion brings out such low emotions for so many people. I can see it in my Facebook friends timeline and on my twitterfeed. Many people saying they don’t care (but secretly do) and many who are genuinely gutted and feel like they are worthless. Society has told them that. That is rather a sad state of affairs isn’t it?

As for me I have no doubt my February 14th will be riveting. I have lemon and pepper southern fried chicken bits to put in rolls for dinner. I may go to the chip shop to get some chips n all. I have an episode of Storm Chasers to catch up on and I’ll be just fine. Not doing what society tells me to nor feeling what society tells me to feel has its upsides and today is one of them. I’m single and I don’t care. If someone walks into my life who’ll make me want to change that then good times but would I care if I was still single for the 2013 version of today? Probably not. I’m happy and content with my life with or without a partner and that is (in my opinion) a very good place to be.

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