Single People Can Have a Great Time On Feb. 14
By Anne Stirling Hastings. Posted on .
Valentine’s day is an invented holiday that has become fraught with expectations and promises along with hurt and fake joy! Let’s challenge the meaning of this once a year time, and stop feeling wasted emotions.
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This one day of the year really has no meaning. It is a waste of time, energy, emotion, and love!
If you can see that Valentine’s day is no more than a culturally invented, marketing and media-driven day, then you can to stop believing you are missing something if you don’t have a lover. If two people are in love, one day out of the year should have no effect on their feelings. Yet doing the day properly has become a requirement of proving love. If you forget, or don’t bring the right gift, you aren’t considered a thoughtful lover. You can avoid all of those bad times!
A friend created a dramatic marriage renewal in the mountains of Hawaii on a Feb. 14th to reassure her husband. Each said what an incredible, profound day it was. Both were ecstatic They separated and divorced a year later. They were trying to reclaim their love. It didn’t work.
Another couple lead every Feb. 14th as they do every other day of the year. They are still together.
MAKE IT A LEARNING OPPORTUNITY
If you are healing your way to more pleasing relating with all others, why not include Valentine’s Day? Instead of staying home alone feeling badly, or trying to ignore it, gather several single friends together. But don’t commiserate. Process! Tell each other all about your experiences of this day. The yearning for it, the dread of it, the hurt, the excitement, and the joy that came on different years.
THINGS TO TRY
Don’t go out to dinner and watch lovers. Cook with your friends, get takeout, or share popcorn in your home. Question the significance of this day.
Start here:
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1. Ask each friend to describe a favorite Valentine’s day. Where is that person you were with? Why aren’t you together?
2. What did you or your lover(s) expect to happen at the end of the evening? Was sex part of the “loving” package? If so, was the sex truly agreed to or did it include obligation? Performance?
3. Survey the number of February 14ths in your life. How many were good? How many not? Why were the good ones good? Why were the bad ones bad?
4. Look around at your friends. On this one day of the year you don’t have expectations of what they will do for you, do you? And they don’t expect more of you than any other day. Isn’t that a nicer way to be together? Comment to each other on this experience of this Feb. 14th.
5. Tell each other how you felt as Valentine’s Day approached and you knew you would be “alone.” Embarrassment? Deprivation? Shame? Afraid something is wrong with you? Afraid others will think something is wrong with you? Does meeting with friends seem inferior to a date?
