With Feb. 14 quickly approaching, Valentine’s Day is becoming a hot topic among many students: some plan to spend all day with their partners, buying plenty of gifts and planning exciting dates– while others plan to spend the day like every other Saturday, relaxing by themselves at home, free of the burden of love.
But a select few are between these two worlds. These are the people who may have a special someone on their mind but haven’t figured out what to do about it. This is where many of them start to view Valentine’s Day as an opportunity to confess how they feel.
There is No Secret Formula
For the people in-between, it’s easy to slip into the idea that all people love certain things, and being simple means being basic. They might look into everything their special person likes and try to combine them into one big show of love. How can it go wrong if the whole thing is planned to make them happy?
The answer is quite clear: that’s not how humans work. There is no secret formula to love, and there is no perfect gift for a perfect holiday. Confessing to someone on Valentine’s Day is a gamble in itself: but pretending there is a fool-proof, perfect way to confess to someone will likely have the opposite effect.
In my life, I’ve admittedly only seen as much love as the next teenager. I’ve seen relationships fail for countless reasons—and I’ve seen relationships end before they even start. But I’ve also seen relationships that seemed like miracles from a supernatural force.
Every relationship works differently. But most of the failed relationships I’ve seen share one thing in common: something missing in the day-to-day. Some of the most showy, colorful relationships I’ve seen have ended because of something wrong in the simple moments. This tells me that the way to a person’s heart may be less set-in-stone than ever anticipated.
Flowers and Chocolate
I imagine Valentine’s Day as a milestone, similar to an anniversary; the holiday is meant to celebrate love, after all. But I don’t see Valentine’s Day as the loud, public celebration that many others see it as.
When I think about a Valentine, I think about someone who gets their partner flowers because they’re pretty—not because they’re supposed to prove something. They’d spend the day with their partner as if it were any other Saturday—and they’d relax, doing whatever they feel like in the moment, unburdened by the pressures of loving loudly.
When I feel the most love is when it feels like Valentine’s Day every day: in lingering eye contact, in a quiet conversation and in the random pieces of love given every day.
Sometimes, holidays like Valentine’s Days can feel like days where one has to prove their worth, as a partner or someone in the in-between. But the most significant ways to tell someone they are loved are not in the extravagant gestures; they’re in the small box of chocolates; flowers and a note carefully placed in someone’s bag.
