If you took your other half out for Valentine’s Day, you shouldn’t have bothered. You could’ve done better. Do something more valuable with your time. Take a swing dancing class. Buy expensive condoms. Watch another YouTube video. Try sex in the library. Spend the evening stalking your exes. It would’ve been a better way to spend your time. Because dressing up, putting on an extra lick of deodorant, and curling that one random strand of hair only masks what’s missing from your relationship: substance.

Couples feel obliged to buy into Valentine’s Day culture, even though it’s a colossal waste of time, money, effort and endorses the idea that you have to look hot to be a successful couple. If you really think that you need to invest money to make someone feel special, then maybe you should stick to Tinder dates and buy your way into bed that way. You may think I’m just a grumpy bugger who scorns at everything: you’re probably right (my exes would agree). But, I have a suspicion, that Valentine’s Day irks you as much as it does me. It’s a night which is for the uncreative and boring who splurge their spare tenner on plastic roses and oversized cards.

A Vice article recently tried to jus- tify Valentine’s Day; the gist being that boys spend the year being grubby and selfish and apparently a mediocre three courser at Café Rouge can fix all that. Ah, I see. So Valentine’s is about making up for what a crappy boyfriend you are? If anything, Valentine’s night is for the biggest cheapskates around. Most Valentine’s meals are geared towards spending as little as possible, resulting in eating sub-standard food.  So you either have to donate an organ to really splash out, or enjoy a Valentine’s supper on dry chicken and half a boiled egg. Like I said, you’ve done better. And do you think dressing in your finest attire will warrant you a romance god? Seeing couples decked out in their finest Abercrombie costumes on Valentines night is about as repulsive as being tagged in an emotional Facebook status that ends with a <3. Your tight jacket and ridiculously tight chinos rolled up at the bottom to expose that tiny sliver of ankle isn’t fooling anyone; you’re dressing for yourself, no one else. As per usual the narcissist’s come out, thinking they’re envied by the waiter who taking their photo. What’s both sad and crazy, is that people want to be taken on Valentines dates. I overheard a girl on the train this week saying ‘But I just really want a date for Valentine’s Day’. Really? Is your romance aspiration having something to tweet about? Being taken out for a disingenuous meal and then going for a quick romp after doesn’t sounds like you’re living in the Nicholas Sparks novel you so desire. Besides, he just got divorced, no more kissing in the rain for him.

Just don’t even celebrate the damn night, a playlist is just as bad as a kiss coupon; organising a flash mob is just as bad as making them dinner. This ridiculous idea that we need to ‘appear’ in love rather than ‘be’ in love is what old Cupid is perpetuating. No good relationship survives on being bought or ‘treated’ to making the effort. If you really wanted your campus relationship to have appeared worthy, then you should’ve stayed home on the fourteenth. And to the singletons among you who yearn for a date, take that swing dance class instead: you’ll work up a more fulfilling sweat than you would with your Tinder date.

Categories: Arts

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