St Valentine’s Day: Doomsday for couples and singles alike

It is somewhat of a cliché  to complain about Valentine’s Day. The explosion of pink and red in every restaurant, shop or café is hard to miss and even more difficult to escape. While traditionally, Spring is the time of love – especially in the animal world, for the most parts, when February 14th rolls around, most people are not in a loving mood. And while we are all familiar with the stereotype of a bitter singleton (normally a woman) bitching and moaning about all the failed relationships in their romantic history, it is a myth to suggest that only single people hate Valentine’s Day. Couples can hate it just as much.

Out of all the Hallmark holidays, Valentine’s Day is perhaps the most overrated. While a day dedicated to romantic love sounds like a plan of genius on paper, much like its cousin, Christmas, it is fraught with arguments and disappointments and often ends badly for those of us who are in a relationship. The problem is that the day is idealised into something it is not, namely that the muses themselves will inspire even the most tongue-tied lover into a master poet. This is simply unrealistic. Many a relationship has ended because normal irritating or indeed, just human behaviour that is overlooked out of love (or tolerance) becomes unbearable since there is an expectation of perfection on Valentine’s Day. If a person does not match up to that expectation, then things end badly. Major effort is often required to keep your sweetheart happy and when everybody has this idea (or rather, need), this can only lead to trouble. Restaurants and cafés are full, staff are stretched and stress is high – hardly the perfect mood for love to blossom.

I am perhaps over-exaggerating. For many couples, Valentine’s Day goes without a hitch but this is usually because plans are kept simple and not much different from the usual behaviour in a relationship. While it is no bad thing to make a special effort, it can easily backfire and resentment at being made to do something ‘different’ – especially if it involves some major expense, can explode. It does not help that this special effort is expected, if not required by lovers around Valentine’s Day through the bombardment of advertising campaigns and plans of various friends. As indicated recently with the X-Factor winner Joe McElderry losing out Christmas number 1, people do not like being told what to do and what to think. It is no wonder then, that so many people break up on Valentine’s Day as the pressure of jumping through the hoops love requires, gets too much. Add the fact that Valentine’s Day falls near enough smack-bang in the middle of Epiphany term when work levels are the highest and morale about even passing your degree the lowest and couples often have a recipe for disaster, rather than love.

Another problem is that if your relationship is not going smoothly, the combination of Christmas and Valentine’s Day means many a person has found themselves in a relationship in which they feel that they cannot get out of as there is ‘never the right time’. Needless to say, this creates a pressure-cooker effect and it seems a waste of breath to say that chances are, there will be some very messy break-ups near you come February 14th. Balancing love on top of everything else university life demands can be a tough business.

Therefore, while couples have it bad on Valentine’s Day with the stress and the expectations, single people have it bad too. The fact that you are not in a relationship, coupled with the ‘Durham Effect’ means that it is too easy to find yourself feeling inadequate over the fact Cupid is failing to send anybody your way. Worse still is the patronising look or tone friends adopt when discussing your romantic prospects as if it is not possible to enjoy life without the presence of a plus one. While a relationship is nice, for many single people, singledom is just that – a choice. If they really wanted a boyfriend or a girlfriend they could get one, but just choose not to. Although it may seem incomprehensible for the coupled-up of us, the advantages of singledom are many: the freedom, the independence, the opportunity to look after yourself and figure out who you are as a person are all things whose importance cannot be denied.

Valentine’s Day is often a disappointment. The stereotypical notion of single people locking themselves in their room is simply not true, either because the person is not that concerned in the first place, or that the couples they would encounter are not even that happy. So, this February 14th, be sure to bear that in mind.