TESTIMONIES OF LOVE
I’ve always loved Valentine’s Day, especially as a kid, especially as someone who’s dealt with perpetual singledom. Even though I’ll steadfastly deny it in person, I’m a mushy-gushy romantic at heart. I love chocolate, I love movies, I love small, deliberate gestures, the ones that show that someone listens, that they care. I know I’m a difficult person to get to know—I may not talk about my feelings (feelings? gross.) or respond to texts, but you can bet that I’ll remember the name of your third cousin twice removed, the one you hate because he stole your sandwich when you were five. I love gorging myself on overpriced chocolates, the ones with peanuts and nougat and caramel, traditionally reserved for special occasions. I adore thinking of myself and the people I love as special occasions. Still, I don’t know how to reconcile my adoration for the lovey-doveyness of Valentine’s Day with the holiday’s forced commercialization of it.
Still, when you’re my breed of chronic over-thinker, it can be good to remember that, hey, maybe it’s just not that deep. And turns out I’m not alone. Below are testimonies of love from Brown University students, a collection of Valentine’s Day hot takes, if you will.
“My boyfriend and I broke up two and a half weeks ago, so Valentine's day is kind of a yikes situation right now. In general, I’m feeling good about it because he and I are friends now. Who needs validation on Valentine’s Day? It’s just some random day. I say that, but also want a valentine.
My best friend actually just texted me the Bernie Sanders meme being like ‘I am once again asking you to be my valentine.’ She and I are married on Facebook, so I feel like I don’t need anyone but her to be my valentine.
In the past I’ve had a lot of things happen on Valentine's Day. I started dating an ex-boyfriend on Valentine’s Day. I sent him a candy-gram in high school saying ‘get in the van,’ which is very creepy, in retrospect. But he went out during his lunch break and bought me a yellow rose, because yellow is my favorite color. We started dating the next day.
I think that Valentine’s Day can really go either way. I feel like it can be a nice way for you to express affection without feeling stupid. However, I also think that if you are relying on validation from somebody on Valentine’s Day, it can be a reality check. I can be my own Valentine’s Day date.”
Venus, 19, Environmental Studies
“I remember when I was in seventh grade, I was dating this boy, but in a very seventh grade way.
My parents are sort of anti-consumerist hippies, so they’re very skeptical of all of the consumerist tropes of Valentine’s Day, and they started to warn me what it might be like.
Especially because my parents never do anything for Valentine’s Day, my whole life I thought it was a holiday where all you do is write cards, like in elementary school.
Every morning my little boyfriend and I would always hold hands when we rode the bus to school. We lived on the same street. And on Valentine’s Day, I remember getting on the bus and he gave me some Russel Stover chocolate and a bear or something. And I had nothing for him, which to me, seemed to be the girl’s role. To just do nothing, and passively accept what was happening, which I now think is problematic and selfish.
At the time though, I think it was also indicative of the fact that I didn’t want that to be happening. So I think that’s a problem as well. My parents saw that the chocolate was Russell Stover and they mocked that, because they associate it with Valentine's day and imposed romantic gestures. I think they made me throw it away or something. It was amusing.
And then relatedly, in high school, I was with a different guy. Wow, this is gonna get deep. I feel like we were on the verge of breaking up by Valentine’s Day, so I wasn’t going to do anything for him. He made me feel like shit everyday. But at the last minute, I decided to get him something just to be nice. To act like I cared about the relationship.
I got him a single rose, and even though I thought it was a nice gesture, I was sure that’d he’d throw it away or whatever. But then he gave me this bouquet of a dozen roses in his water bottle. It was very cute. And he started using a 3D printer around that time, so he 3D printed my name. The i’s even had hearts over them.
And I thought it was pretty sweet. He actually put in some effort there. But at the same time, it was another reminder of how false our relationship was. Regardless of the fact that he did that, which showed that he obviously cared about me as a person, it also emphasized how our relationship felt performative. You shouldn't be doing any of this for me. I shouldn't be feeling like I need to do anything for you.
We feel like there’s this one day of the year where we have to do something that’s completely false to the way we’re actually feeling, and it’s hard also because my ex-boyfriend and I are very authentic people who don’t like to say bullshit, so it all felt really weird.
I feel like last year I was finally able to ignore Valentine’s Day. At Brown, there aren’t that many couples where it feels like a big deal. You don’t see people all around doing these grand romantic gestures, whereas in high school I feel like it was a lot more common.
I guess even when Valentine’s Day was supposed to be meaningful to me, I didn’t think it ever was. Now that I’m not in a relationship, I also think that you can just as easily let the day pass by without doing anything, and that’s completely fine. That said, I am having a Galentine's Day event with some friends. I think that’s cute, but also unnecessary. We’re only doing it in reaction to Valentine's day. It’s not like we were just like ‘oh look we like each other.’ Obviously we know that every day of the week, there’s no reason to be doing anything.
And that’s why I hate Valentine’s Day.”
Aphrodite, 20, Environmental Studies and German
I’ve never been in a relationship, so most of my teenage Valentine’s Days have been largely uneventful in comparison to most of my peers. I haven’t experienced any exhausting, drawn-out arguments or suffered breakdowns over flowers. My Valentine’s Days have been simple affairs. I ate chocolate and watched movies and was thankful for my equally single friends.
Back when I was in eighth grade, I vowed to print a bunch of satirical Valentine’s Day cards for my friends, the kinds that you’d find on Instagram, on those meme accounts that crop up once every year. I scoured the internet for the perfect batch. I printed them. I trimmed off the edges to make them perfectly square and I purchased lollipops to tape the cards to. I wanted to do something without it feeling like a huge thing. Just something to say I care about you, with whatever limited means that I could.
That said, my favorite Valentine’s Day memory was when I was eight years old.
My mom adores holidays and gift giving. And when I was eight, she celebrated. My mom got me a feather pen and a pink fuzzy notebook. That year was the first time my mom gifted me something other than chocolate. I remember how I kept running the hot pink felt over my cheeks, and how soft it felt in my hands, and how the fuzziness would tickle my nose.
That year was also the last time my mom ever got me something other than candy on Valentine’s Day. Even now, my mom will usually send over a small box of chocolates to my dorm, because she knows how much I love them. I hope she looks back at that Valentine’s Day with as much fondness as I do.
Regardless, I’m glad that I’m not alone with my Valentine’s Day woes. Thank you, Eros, for summing it up best.
“My heart hasn’t been broken, it’s just chillin’”
Eros, 19, International Relations
AUTHOR: Rose Diaz is in her second year at Brown and is constantly wondering why it rains so much in Providence. She’s studying literary arts and enjoys spending way too much time pursuing random bookstores in her small, completely unheard-of hometown of NYC.
ARTIST: Elon Collins