All You Need Is Love

Valentine's Day is the holiday that single people love to hate. Well, not all single people, but many of them. This is the first Valentine's Day I'm celebrating as a non-single person, and every year prior to this one, I was convinced that the whole purpose of Valentine's Day was to make single people feel like shit.

When I was a freshman in high school, Childhood Friend and I were both single. (Fourteen years old and single. *Gasp* It was embarrassing!) We spent Valentine's Day together. We rented Psycho and watched it in order to reinforce our belief that love sucked.

The year after, High School Friend got in on the fun. The two of them decided on a real horror movie, and I told them to go for it (despite the fact that those things still give me nightmares) because I wouldn't be able to join them. You see, my very close, platonic male friend (whom I was infatuated with) had casually asked me what I was doing on Valentine's Day, and then suggested that we "have dinner or something." I was ecstatic. (I didn't know at the time that he was a total asshole. In fact, now that I think of it, Boyfriend is probably the only decent human being I have ever been attracted to in my life.) At the last minute, however, he got sick, and I wound up spending V-Day alone.

After that, I pretty much stopped acknowledging the holiday because it was "stupid." My parents always gave Sister and I gifts (chocolates and such), but the holiday irked me. Especially after my single girlfriend V-Day ritual fizzled out.

I will admit that this year, it is nice to not only be in a relationship, but to physically be with my S.O. (considering we don't always have that luxury). But this morning, I still found myself reminiscing about watching Psycho with Childhood Friend. I also thought about last V-Day, when Fellow Seeker called me up and said, "I was thinking that Valentine's Day is about people you love, and I love you, so I called to say Happy Valentine's Day!" Those things are precious too.

So if you are single, or taken, or whatever you are, Happy Valentine's Day. I leave you with these words of wisdom from my Inner Bitch desk calendar:

Inside me lives a skinny woman crying to get out. But I can usually shut her up with chocolate!