Single or taken, I don’t get Valentine’s Day

You could give me gifts and chocolate every day of the week but overrated menus for two alongside a mandatory side order of sickly PDA? Definitely not.

You could call me the Scrooge of all things Valentine. I’d probably take that crown and wear it like the Queen herself.

But I’m 99.9 per cent sure I’m not the only one who is sick of the annual “boy did well” posts clogging up my Instagram feed, with the occasional “I love you bby” thrown into the mix.

This is my type of Instagram post

That oh-so carefully filtered cuddly toy and bouquet of red roses has been rammed down all of our throats since the turn of the New Year. You can almost guarantee that “bae” only jumped on the bandwagon in the hope of some matching underwear and a few extra brownie points.

Yes, I am single, but that doesn’t make me jealous or bitter and I’m still quite the hopeless romantic. I’ve endured my fair share of coupled up Valentine’s and even then I just didn’t get the hype.

Otherwise known as…

The crazy amount of pressure on me and my other half to shower each other with tacky gifts and make V-Day better than the average “date night” sent me into a quivering wreck even then.

And now I’m single, I can’t even nip to the corner shop for a bottle of wine to drown my lonely sorrows without being assaulted with cringe-worthy hearts and sickening poems as soon as I walk through the door. Don’t even get me started about the oblivion it sends me into when I’ve just been through a break up.

Not mentally prepared for this yet

Lad or no lad, making plans on the dreaded day takes weeks of planning and hours of attempted dinner reservations for nothing more than a mediocre set meal.

It’s a Saturday for fuck’s sake, I just want to go out with my best friends and pretend the whole ordeal doesn’t exist. But no, everything’s fully booked so we are left with no choice but to watch chick flicks like the stereotypical females men think we are.

Nothing could even prepare us for the nauseating public displays of affection that we’d witness if we did dare leave the house. It’s a general assumption that Valentine’s Day makes public gyration acceptable. It’s not.

Takeaway’s won’t be fully booked- just sayin’

It’s a celebration of the death of Saint Valentine (or seven), so don’t go around giving me sympathetic looks when I say I have no plans with a significant other.

I’m a firm believer that if a relationship is good enough, there doesn’t need to be any extravagant plans or official calender date that should be more romantic than the rest of them. Pretty cards with cute little poems are fantastic and all, but is that really a good enough reason to make such a big deal out of one day?

No

Personally, I’ll be satisfied tucking into my Domino’s meal deal for one with no worries as to who gets to enjoy the last slice, before spooning the teddy bear my dad bought me after my first big break up.

After all, Valentine’s Day is nothing but a reminder of that morning I left an anonymous rose in my crushes tray in primary school. That’s about as romantic as I get.

Valentine’s spoon courtesy of father