3 Signs You’re Bitter About Valentine’s Day

This is the day you’ve been marking off on your calendars with the big red ‘X,’ as if to ignore its negative, dream crushing existence. Valentine’s Day has arrived unwarranted and uninvited again this year, as if it was even invited last year, just to make you feel even more lonely and even more unwanted in this world of single people and disparity.

While there are plenty of couples skipping around hand-in-hand, drenched in pink hearts and love-scented perfume, you are probably sitting alone, drowning your sorrows in your Ben & Jerry’s and rom-coms. It’s okay to be bitter. We at Valley have all been there, and we all support you in your rights to misery. In light of the most miserable day of the year, here are some signs you are truly bitter this Valentines’s Day.

1. The sight of couples makes you nauseated

Does the changing of a relationship status on Facebook send you straight into a public restroom? Does the sight of a couple smiling and holding hands on College Avenue make you want to dig your nails into your eyelids? Congratulations, you might be bitter for this Valentine’s Day. Just because you haven’t been in a relationship in a while doesn’t give you the right to cry hysterically in angst in light of everyone else’s newfound happiness (or maybe it does.)

Seeing other people can’t be easy if you’re still recovering from someone else who broke your heart, and we at Valley have been there several times. Stay off the internet. Treat yourself to a day of isolation or good friends to prevent yourself from seeing the romanticism of the world melt into your apparently unfortunate life. After all, what’s a day worth living if there isn’t a Prince Charming waiting to hold you in his arms?

2. Your thoughts of guys in general aren’t pleasant

Still angry over your boyfriend two years ago who shattered your heart? You may still be too bitter for Valentine’s Day. Who cares if he’s moved on since then? You have your life and your college experience and your Friday nights at the bars and your THON committee. You’re probably winning in terms of happiness, after all.

Make Valentines Day about celebrating yourself if you can’t celebrate it with a significant other. Buy a whole box of chocolates and eat them slowly as you cry and listen to heavy romantic music. Treat yourself to a fancy dinner with your best friend just because she’s secretly the person you’re going to marry someday. Guys aren’t your best friends, clearly, and chocolate, jewelry, or food can surely take their places.

3. You see the day as a bleak waste of time

People in love and in deep, fulfilling relationships adore Valentine’s Day. Those of us who aren’t enjoying any of those romantic comforts of life most likely would rather gouge our eyes out than see one more candy heart, or one more singing valentine be sung across campus. It’s not easy being bitter on such a happy holiday for some cheeky people.

However, the day doesn’t have to be a bleak waste of time. Need a distraction? Go with your best single gal pals to see Endless Love. Nothing says “alone and bitter” like a cliche rom-com with a hot male lead and buckets full of tears.

Photo by Gabby Mannino