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Campus Help: Valentine’s Day

Posted on February 26, 2010 by Editor

Our resident ‘agony aunt’ is right here to relate to! This month she tackles ‘Valentine’s Day Demons’… guys and girls ‘this is it’ with Roza Carvalho

I’m pissed off. To be more accurate, I was pissed off. Yesterday. On Valentines Day. You’ll be happy to know, that besides possibly having the new strain of swine flu, my emotional state is considerably better.

Does that communicate to you exactly how much I loathe that squishy heart, chocolate rich day? Yes, you may accuse me of being a bitter shrew. Guilty as charged.

Of course, I will be the first to admit to being fickle. Send me some roses, some form of sugar and any type of corny cuddly being and I will love the day fervently. I might even smile as that couple walks past, instead of silently cursing them and my single doom.

I find myself going through four distinct stages leading up to Valentines Day and culminating the day after. The first, more pleasant one of ‘said phases’ is filled with hope and happy expectation. Someone out there loves me secretly and I will find myself inundated with hordes of Valentines kitsch. On the other end of the spectrum, it will finally be the day that I tell that person I have secretly been yearning for with every particle of my being that I’m in ‘like’ with them.  Actually, I wouldn’t have been quite certain about that part.

Alas, it does not last. I drag myself into the reality of the situation, learnt at the ‘Valentine’s Day School of Experience’.

The second stage is still positive though. You are a strong, independent, unusually charming (slight exaggeration) woman, who definitely doesn’t need roses and chocolate. Repeat this phrase three times daily after alcohol. I find like minded people, who talk of anti-Valentines Day bashes and share their cynicism about the commercial, corporate bullshit day.

After this comes the hard part. Valentines Day and the third stage. I’m not wading through a sea of Princess-Diana-like-flowers at my front door, breathing in their sweet scent, contemplating love and existence. No. I’m doing terribly mundane things, like washing the dishes and dealing with an ant infestation.

I find little solace in finishing my Cold War essay and the quarter glass of wine that was left after all my self-medicating.

Then the rage builds and I do little to constrain it. I let my indignation and anger simmer at a healthy temperature for the rest of the day. Sleep is more than welcome. Today, in the midst of the final stage, acceptance, I’m relatively okay. Besides the burning sensation at the back of my throat and the growing heap of vile tissues next to my keyboard that is.

I’ve got a year till I need to be put on the wrack again. Or maybe not…