Valentine’s day is less than 24 hours away, and while many couples and singles alike are getting ready for the big day by purchasing cards, chocolates, ordering flowers, and making reservations for their partners, or getting prepared to have a night on the town, many are dreading the day of love for many reasons. Either their single, recently broken up, or they don’t have the funds at the moment to give their partner their ideal version of a great Valentine’s day. Whichever the case, the international day of love doesn’t spark joy for everyone and can even cause a great deal of anxiety. I and many others refer to this as the Valentine’s day blues.
What is Valentine’s Day Blues?
So, what exactly is valentine’s day blues you ask? It’s the sudden sadness or negative emotions and feelings you may find yourself experiencing towards Valentine’s day. You can experience the blue’s in the coming days before valentine’s day or the days following after. It can make you anxious, sad, or even depressed, setting a dampening cloud over your day, week, or even the entire month. Many individuals who experience this feel a great sense of loneliness and sometimes hopelessness because they don’t have a special someone to share the day with or don’t have a positive outlook on making future connections. Those who are grieving from a recent loss may have already negative feelings intensified on this day. So how do we get over it? Or at least get through it?
It’s easy to tell someone that their negative feelings or attitudes around holidays aren’t realistic and that they are just for that moment. However, these feelings originate from somewhere. After all, we are our experiences. Telling someone not to be sad or to simply ignore their feelings doesn’t allow them to process what they are feeling which helps us understand why we are feeling this way in the first place, thus helping to begin the healing process, and desensitizes us to our triggers around time-specific events that occur every year so we aren’t stricken with mental anguish when the day rolls around. Even if we hide these feelings or ignore them, the psyche remembers everything, and they will eventually manifest themselves unconsciously through our body language and behaviors.
If your someone who’s a long-time single or newly single, your feelings of loneliness can also come from a sense of not feeling complete or validated. Having a romantic partner (sexual or not) gives us a sense of feeling whole, and others seeing that someone chose you makes you feel special. I’ll touch on it a little more in another post, but your partner doesn’t complete you. You complete you and you can’t pour from a half-empty glass into someone else’s cup, or else you might find that one day you’ve given all you have and with nothing to give to yourself. Your partner is supposed to add to your life, not suck the life out of you. On the flip side, being single is not supposed to make you feel lonely. So if your single on the day of love, love yourself how you want to be loved and find new ways to express that love by trying new things and maybe conserving your energy. I personally find that taking a day to spoil myself by not doing anything recharges me mentally and lowers my overall anxiousness.
For those dreading the day because they don’t have the money to spend on gifts and fancy restaurants, the idea of breaking the bank for one day is either something you do as a labor of love to your partner, or you might be doing it out this outdated ideology that makes you feel less than or not good enough if you don’t go out of your way to give your partner the best and most expensive valentine’s day possible. If no one has told you this already, let me be the first: Spending money on someone for one day of the year is not a thing you need to do. Now, birthdays are a bit different because it’s literally their day, but don’t need to break the bank on your partner just because a holiday rolls around once a year and mandates you to do so.
I actually find that when my partner randomly surprises me or treats me to nice things that have nothing to do with holidays, I feel special because I know they’re thinking about me without the obligation of a holiday dictating when they should do so. It’s really the thought that counts, and for many people like me, they just want to be thought about. Spreading thoughtfulness throughout the year on your partner, in my opinion, is 10 times better than reducing it to just one day. Valentine’s day can be any day you want it to be and I’m sure your if your partner will love whatever you decide to do for/get them on that day. Additionally, if you can’t celebrate on that day with your partner, plan a special day of your own with them. I’m sure they’ll love it.
Final Thoughts
Valentine’s day is what you define it to be. A special day or just another day is still special because your alive. No matter what you decide to do on that day, it will still be something special. If you like to make a big deal out of this day, do that. If you see the day as just another day of the week, then enjoy that day and try to do something a little special for yourself if you don’t have someone special to celebrate with. Surround yourself with people that love and support you and make your life special.
What are your plans for Valentine’s day?
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