NVSB: No Valentine Since Birth

Yes. Always have but I hope NOT always will.

That tweet of Ramon Bautista gave me the idea to write something about not having a Valentine every 14th of February. There were already several advice written on how to celebrate this so called “Single Awareness Day” so I am not going to write about that. I’m not so sure how this post will go. I will just write away until I finish this. Maybe I will just write about the feeling or the experience (female perspective) and possibly put you readers inside our shoes. Welcome to the “lonely hearts club”!

How does it feel to have lived without a Valentine?

Taking back to the title quoted from Sir RB, “NVSB: No Valentine Since Birth”, I am and I’m not being bitter or sad about it nor being proud for it’s a fact. It’s a reality I’ve been facing not only on Heart’s day but also during Holiday seasons, birthdays and other celebratory occasions. So how does it feel like? Sad? Lonely? Happy? Stressful? Peaceful? There’s no exact feeling. I guess it’s a case to case basis and it’s always  mixture of feelings. I am sure I am not the only one who’s in this phase, so raise your hand if you are NVSB and affirm or negate the following:

1.               While your friends or parents go on a date, you are left to date yourself. It’s lonely because you’re alone as in you have no companion but it’s not “lonely” lonely as in “sad”.  No problem, by now you’re probably used to it anyway. Enjoy independence, woman!

2.               While others stress out on preparing surprises for their loved ones, you are there spending a normal day in school or at work without nothing to worry about. That makes it peaceful.  Your pocket and wallet is worry-free, you've got all the time in the world and your mind is free from stress. Be happy.

3.               While others receive flowers and chocolates from their boyfriend or hubby, you get yours own from friends, colleagues, family members or worst, from your own pocket. Or maybe you just watch the couples with green-eyes as they get their surprises. This is the part where it gets sad but it is all in the mind. It is not required to eat chocolates, have flowers on V-day, chill.  It is not right to be jealous, instead be happy for they are experiencing those.  Don’t sulk. We take it as a regular day.

You see, I inserted positive things in the above-mentioned scenarios because thinking about Valentine’s day as a problem and source of stress and sadness is just wrong. It’s a celebration of love. Not only for lovers but also for life so I wanted everyone to realize that whether you’re single or not, you may celebrate it.  

Hating
Don’t get us wrong, having no Valentine doesn't mean we never fell in love. Some of us may be (as of the moment) broken-hearted,  in love with someone taken, or harboring unrequited feelings, but in one way or another I’m pretty sure we've all experienced love. It’s just that we never had Valentine’s on the 14^th. From personal experience, it sometimes get to the annoying point when people always ask about our love life. On reunions, we dread conversations involving this topic. It’s an irate feeling when relatives/acquaintances ask “Do you have a boyfriend?” and when answered “No” they’d be like “Why?” Like it’s a disease not to have one. On Valentine’s, people ask who’s the date and where’s the date when they already know you’re dateless and single. Imagine if you were in our place and you were bombarded with those questions you never wanted to talk about or you have answers but your answers weren't accepted wouldn't you be annoyed too? I mean it’s alright to ask but sometimes it’s just too much. Again, I’m not being bitter but be reminded that we do not owe you an explanation. That’s why I  understand those who avoid Valentine’s day and the celebratory effects of it. They are probably fed up. It is overrated.

I used to be a Valentine Grinch when I’m much younger or until 2012. I remember my HS/College friends and I have this secret group (I won’t disclose the name) in Facebook where we write our love-hate posts as we were all single and “medyo bitter” then. We even planned to have an I-hate-Valentine’s-day party inspired by the Valentine’s day movie until suddenly things changed to me. From 2013 onwards, I dropped the hate. I realized there’s no point. It won’t change the fact that I am still single and dateless.

I also thought that ignoring the day and ranting about it would not give me any gain. As part of growing up, I realized that we should just acknowledge and accept it as it is.

Photo credits: Business Insider

Here's Jennifer Garner on her famous pinata scene on Valentine's day movie.

Cycle of Life

I was not a fan of those “I will take the moon and the stars just to be with you” pick-up lines of a guy. I see no truth behind that anyway. Maybe I’m just too cynical to believe. There’s more to love than that. It’s not about receiving 3 roses and note cards with chocolates, not that candle-lit dinner even. Although, those are sweet, mushy, cheesy, moments any girl would not refuse to take. But I see love in the simplest ways, words uttered could not even compare to the feeling.
The blushing cheeks, the “I-can’t-stop-smiling feeling”, the “I-can’t-get-you-out-of-my-head thought”, the “awww moments” and the “I-can’t-live-without-you mentality”. It’s heaven I tell you. But one should never be attached, realizing that the more you get used to something the more it’s harder for you to let it go when it’s time to take away whatever you have that you can’t let go.

That’s the sad reality of not having forever, having change as the only thing constant. Plus the fact that people always leave, true enough. And what’s new right? We always have that someone who wishes to leave with or without reason, a friend, special someone, relative, family member, whoever. We just can’t force them to stay. Never. If it’s God’s will, things will just happen. We lose but we also gain in the process, we just have to get used to it and we must never forget them.

The cycle of life. You live, you love, you let go and you move on. People should never depend on somebody so it wouldn’t hurt in the end after all losing means having something new, who knows maybe that that something could be the thing that you always wanted?

Text twist and something

Picture this, you and your close guy friend’s playing Text Twist way way back dinosaur ages, where lol (laugh out loud) doesn’t exist yet. (You probably live under a rock that time, but wait, there’s PC already!) But anyhows, The word is “Easily”, smart that he is he figured out the word in less than 30 seconds, he just needed to fill the three-letter word spaces left for him to complete the round. As we sometimes think, smart people knew complicated things, but the simple ones harder for them to solve and figure out. Lost as he was then, after multiple times of jumbling the scrambled letters, he goes: “Is this allowed?” and typed in: “ILY”. And you replied: “what does that mean?” then he said “nothing, forget it”.

It was then that later on you realized that it was the loveliest three-words ever made. Little did you know that that was it, busted. Awww. How you wish there were tutorials on online abbreviations, but there wasn’t any, so you didn’t get it, and you didn’t reply in a way that you were supposed to, in a way that you wished you have.

….It happens.