Relationships are Overrated

Dear People in a Relationship on Valentine’s Day,

Roses are red
Violets are blue
Valentine’s Day is overrated
Single people matter, too.

As soon as Christmas is over, the Valentine’s Day mania begins. A person can’t even go to a convenience store for the necessities (such as a pint of ice cream and a box of tissues for a nightly ugly cry) without being blindsided by a sparkly pink, teddy bear-shaped reminder of her relationship status — or lack, thereof.

I’d be able to live with the holiday if its candies were of any quality, but the candy is subpar and tastes like chalk, and is for some reason emblazoned with messages such as “Kiss Me” and “I Love You,” creating a negative feedback loop in which I eat the whole box to distract myself from the candies’ messages.

While we’re on the subject of Valentine’s Day candies, has anyone ever thought about why they’re always either pink or red? The entire holiday’s color scheme is based off of blood and internal organs. So romantic!
The chaotic mania of “cuffing season” drives many a single person to feel a necessity to enter a relationship in time for a Valentine’s Day date. That’s probably why they release all those cheesy rom-coms around holiday time.

By February, everyone is driven so insane by the hundreds of romantic Netflix Originals that they seek out new relationships. I bet jewelry companies fund the movies to gain the new relationship client.

In all these movies, there’s always a secret admirer who leaves notes or chocolates in the locker of the admiree. I’m not sure how the locker stalker ever gets the girl, but in real life, I’d have the chocolates checked for anthrax spores or trace amounts of arsenic because it’s creepy. Or, more likely, I wouldn’t check my locker until I had to clean it out in June.

And what’s with the symbol of “cupid”? Who decided that the fate of love should be decided by a flying naked baby shooting love-arrows at its subjects? Why not something more menacing like a love-fire-breathing dragon or a ninja throwing love-stars?

To me, the ideal Valentine’s Day is spent following the lead of Cher from Clueless — buying yourself a chocolate assortment to survive the remainder of the thankfully-shortest month of the year.

Sincerely,
A Decided Avoider of Cupid’s Arrows