If you’ve been to Price Chopper, Target, Walmart or any other retail store, you already know what time of year it is. The pink hearts, red-boxed chocolates and freshly-stocked roses might give you a hint. It’s Valentine’s Day!
What does your ideal Valentine’s Day look like? Many might believe it to be the most idyllic date: Being taken out to a luxurious restaurant where charcuterie boards, lobster and a wine fancier than those in rural France itself is the norm, then going off to the beach to ride on white stallions and finally, to end the day, being dropped off with a kiss and a bouquet of flowers. However, it doesn’t have to be this extravagant — even though the movies (looking at you, Hallmark movies) make it out to be.
Valentine’s Day is different for everyone.
It may seem like the perfect time to express and admit your feelings for someone else — what an “Iris” by The Goo Goo Dolls gesture that is! — or simply to appreciate your significant other and everything they’ve done for you and everything they make you feel. But, alongside those feelings, the holiday might culminate into a dehumanizing spiral of pressure and stress to “do it right.”
But what does “doing it right” really mean?
There’s no correct answer. There’s no guidebook on how to do Valentine’s Day 100% right — well, there are, but it’s not absolutely necessary to follow them. As said before, each relationship is unique to those who are in it. But the only thing that truly matters is the effort you put in; it’s the thought that counts. And yes, it might sound cliché to say that, but it’s true!
Valentines Day looks different for everyone, in this article Phung writes about the different ways to make this day your own. Illustration by Lillian LaFemina/The Daily Campus.
But don’t totally scrap the luxuriousness of it all, either.
You could be as extravagant as you want. Although it isn’t required, you could travel to new places, eat at a three-star Michelin restaurant — yes, the lobster included — or you could finally pop that important question.
Still, don’t force yourself to make a grand gesture.
You can also keep it more simple. You could write handwritten letters to one another, make heart-shaped pizzas together, or just stay in and watch Valentine’s Day movies.
An ideal Valentine’s Day could look like it does in the picture books you’ve seen when you were younger, the movies that are incredibly unrealistic but still roam around in your mind when you think of Valentine’s Day, or the dreams you have about meeting the love of your life. But, it could also look like a regular day with small tweaks.
With effort, time and intention, it shouldn’t really matter what you do as long as it’s done out of love for your significant other. Ideally, love isn’t just in the air, but it’s in your blood. It’s consistent year-round. Valentine’s Day isn’t a holiday to win someone back or to start something new — although it can be — but it’s a celebration of what is already there; it’s a celebration and reinforcement of romance, intimacy and appreciation for one another. It consists of spending time with your significant other and putting in thought to share a special connection and shared experience with the other person.
Sometimes less is more. And with that in mind this Valentine’s Day, the romance only found in books may readily illuminate off the page and into reality.