Valentine's Day inspires disdain, sense of loss

By Andrew Corcostegui
The Collegian

I HATE THIS time of year. Though, that’s probably not fair, because I don’t like very many times of the year.

But this season in particular gets me especially incensed.

Simply put: I don’t like Valentine’s Day.

It’s just another holiday intended to differentiate people who are in couples from those who are not — people I will now affectionately refer to as “singletons.”

And before you make any hasty suppositions about what you think this article is going to entail, let me warn you that this isn’t about the commercialism of the holiday.

I couldn’t care less about insincere holidays. I mean, I just spent the whole of the last column attempting to reconnect with Britney Spears.

I’m not really a model of positive values or virtues.

I guess what I’m discovering as I make daily steps closer to graduation is that a majority of the people my age are about to embark on an even bigger adventure: marriage.

The idea causes me to swoon, and not in the good way. Truthfully, I can think of nothing that causes me more grief. Except what has happened to Britney. (But you already know that.)

Three, yes three, of my friends have recently announced their plans to wed. Don’t get the wrong idea though. I’m happy for them. I’m happy they are happy, and I cannot stress this enough.

What troubles me so much is how it forces me to look at my own life.

I wake up every morning, flummoxed at the thought of having to pick which pair of shoes I’m going to put on. And I’m typically too disorganized to get laundry done, which means no clean socks.

No socks, no shoes, no service.

Yet these friends, these couples, are ready to make what is quite possibly the biggest decision of their lives.

Have I missed a step developmentally? Am I trapped in some alternate childhood Wonderland?

Here I am, ranting about shoes, while my friends are setting sail towards Marriage Island, towards actually committing to something and someone.

I might argue that the idea is archaic, that romance went out the window with the development of the pre-nup, that nobody stays monogamous anymore.

But that’s not quite right. I know a lot of happy couples that can remain committed.

I might also argue that it is hard to support an institution that is not guaranteed for every individual in this country, we all aren’t free to be you and/or me.

But I know that the folks in Clovis would wet themselves at the idea of same-sex unions. God forbid two men or two women might love each other, right? Quel horreur!

Insert obvious sarcasm.

And while I might champion one or both of those points, neither has anything to do with my anxieties.
The truth is, I’m going to miss those friends.

Yes, we’ll still talk. I’ll go over to their coupled home, and drink their coupled wine and pass out on their coupled couch because of too much of the aforesaid wine.

But it will never be the same.

They, these friends, have found the person who will mean more to them than every single one of their singleton friends combined.

I can’t hate them for that. But I will.

It requires me to acknowledge that while I am still important to them, my role in their life is diminished because they have a spouse now.

Meanwhile, I’m still that immature singleton friend who wanders about sockless, drunk on cynicism and coupled wine, lamenting that everyone is leaving me.

Maybe this is nature’s way of implying that we’re all meant to be bound to someone. Maybe it’s time I cave in to these cultural ideals about what it is grown-ups are supposed to do.

Or maybe I can just continue to blame stupid cupid for driving all of my friends into the arms of people who will love and cherish them. That jerk.

I know in time I’ll come to terms with what is going on. But before then, I remind all of the singletons out there, distraught with this notion that we all have to run out and pair off, to remain calm, know that there are plenty of us staying put and that we won’t die alone.

Most of us, anyway.

So to all of the singletons reading, Happy V-Day. You’re still free agents. Live it up a little.

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