Alone Again

For the eighteenth Valentines Day in a row, I will be solitary. I will not consider myself alone. Yet in the typical V Day stance, I will be. My relationship status as displayed on Facebook as it has been for the last five years, will be ‘single’. 

I never have been really sure how to react to the lurve day hype that arrives as January departs. People talk about their plans. Buy shit. It has never affected me personally. My parents don’t even participate in it (Dad believes Valentine’s Day is another “goddamn” American corporate scheme to gain international control).

Yet every year, again and again, individuals around me moan about oh how they’re single yet again on the dreaded day and that their life has no meaning and how they are doomed to be forever alone. Every single year, (and every other day) I am forced to empathize with these people like I give a frazzling fuck. Fine. Yes I am in their exact situation; I know the single blues like the bloody crazy cat lady on the Simpsons. And because of their not being able to handle their lonesomeness, something that had little impact on my existence has now instead transformed it to shit.

This is only becomes depressingly worse when you consider my gender, along with the fact that I have a multitude friends that share my gender. I am not meaning to stereotype here, but lonely teenage girls are the scum of the earth come February. If not the whole population of them, the majority. Their incessant whines of “omg does he lyk meh” are enough to render a bystander into a state of considerable mental damage.

Towards the end of high school, my grade was forced into Mean Girlseque workshop confronting the future and fears and feels. At one point we were to anonymously submit genuine anxieties of ours, which were then read aloud. Amongst the reasonably terrifying statements, there was one that went along the lines of “I AM NEVER GOING TO FIND SOMEBODY TO LOVE ME”. And apparently this was shockingly relatable. And the only real consolation for this is that someone will love you eventually. It just hasn’t happened yet.

Pardon moi? Whatever happened to everyone jumping on Beyonce’s empowered wagon and waving their hands sassily in people’s faces and embracing all the single ladies? To everyone repeating said gesture and exclaiming that like The Pussycat Dolls, they don’t need a man? Was that just a cute trend and not a resonating truth for you all?

 I actually cannot understand why we so often define ourselves by other people. As depressing as this sounds, you are born alone. Your soul mate is not immediately allocated to you. If you cannot exist as an individual, oh how life will seem to endlessly shit on you. Honestly though, you are you. You are not the relationship status looming on your Facebook profile. You are you and that to me matters more than who you happen to (or not to) spoon at night. Why should we be made to feel descending qualms for not having someone to constantly swap saliva with?

This Valentine’s Day, I refuse to be made to feel inferior to any pair of face licking deviants. February 14th to me will just be another day just like its 364 brothers and sisters of the year. I will continue to exist, just as I always have. I am me. An individual. Not a half of two names jokingly merged together. But a whole.