📷 by @dincturks.

Do you remember how elated you felt when you were 14 and roses were getting delivered to classrooms? Do you still remember the scent of that one rose that finally got placed on your desk? You almost inhaled it with your nostrils and wore a smile through the high school yard for the rest of the day, because the world knew that you had somebody who loved you.

Does that stain in your favourite paisley printed shirt still have the scent of that dumpster behind that bar where you fucked that nubile twenty-something with a torso worthy of infomercials? You know the overly bronzed one you met on a dance floor a few hours after attending a couples Valentine’s dinner. The dinner when your friends thought inclusive was more constructive for your single ego than exclusion?

What about that ticket stub cemented in the pages of your favourite book, does its texture still fill you with the sensations you felt seeing Grizzly Bear live with his hands interwoven in yours?

The month of love is upon us again and like an old Hallmark card. Jewellery advertisements and luscious florist window fronts are showing us just how desperately single we are. Deluding us into believing that our partners love for us will be measured on February 14 by the worth of the gift we receive.

February’s the month where singletons frantically attempt to fulfil their New Year’s resolution to find love by dating a string of unworthy singles. It’s the month that thirty-something fathers courting front packs look even more mouth-watering as they stroll down sidewalks with a bouquet in one hand and their child’s pacifier in the other.

It’s also the month where office cubicles get flooded with floral décor deliveries; commitment rings are flashed in our faces like they are the new must-have couture and the month when the world reminds us just how unashamedly single we are. All in the name of some patron saint called St. Valentine.

While Valentine’s Day benefits some retailers, boosts bookings for hospitality venues and offers the floral industry one of the most lucrative bouquets of the year. What does Valentine’s Day really offer us? Does it assure us that our partner does, in fact, love us? Does it make us feel inadequate due to our inability to find something real that we want to love? Does it stir something inside of us that motivates us to put ourselves out there more, so that next February 14th we’ll be rejoicing in romantic splendour like a Rachel McAdams frame?

For some Valentine’s Day showers us with gifts. For others, it showcases forgotten affections. But for many, it leaves us with a sense of emptiness. This emotional and physical void that we feel is just one of the many symptoms of St. Valentine’s love bites and whether the arrows shot by cupid have left us feeling lonely, unsatisfied or complacently falling out of love. On Valentine’s Day, an increase of prescribed lovesickness dosages are mandatory.

LOVE BITE #1: GHOSTS OF ST VALENTINE’S PAST

Tap ⬆️ to listen to Losing You by @Solange while you 📖 🎧

St. Valentine’s teeth marks have this intrinsic way of tearing at our subconscious. If we are single, View-Master reels of picnics we shared, meals that ignited our palates and those people who we believed were destined to be ours and ours alone for a lifetime, come to the forefront of recollection. On the flip-side, if we’re in a relationship the essence of what we once were in the honeymoon phase of us and the divide that has grown from love ageing our relationship is unavoidably apparent.

Yet while nostalgia is something to be cherished our past is our past for a reason. It didn’t work out with our exes because of choices that we made and actions committed by them that contradicted the future which we perceived for ourselves. As for the loss of liveliness that initially made us float like helium balloons each time our partner smirked at us while driving down the coast. That expression is still there. However, our focus has shifted from what invigorates us with romanticised vivacity. To where our peers believe our relationship should be.

LOVE BITE #2: A PILLOW WARMER IS BETTER THAN AN EMPTY BED

Tap ⬆️ to listen to High by @PekingDuk while you 📖 🎧

The dawning of a New Year, wedding season fever and the abundance of summer love flaunted along cityscapes and beach shorelines. Induces a fervour to date until we find someone who is worthy of our devotion.

We find ourselves on dull dates that we’re itching to flee. Dates where mid-meal he informs us that he’s just not getting anything out of this experience and has booked an Uber home. We decide to take a chance on someone who is a little outside of our comfort zone and go home with them post a mediocre date. Only to find ourselves being pounded against a pillowcase that hasn’t seen a washing machine in months and waddling down a busy laneway in desperate need of some Aloe Vera gel and a stiff vodka.

Sadly love is a battlefield and dating well it’s a tsunami. One with swells that are unpredictable, winds we’d prefer weren’t released post sex and enough force to deflate our romantic notions of what love could feel like for us. But despite our single status and the series of lacklustre dates we experience on our journey towards finding someone real that we want to love. Our efforts and courage deserve a robust applause from our peers. Because we haven’t given up and still believe that if we keep looking, maybe we will find our Mr Big. Love still does seem attainable to us; heartache hasn’t knocked our confidence, and we’re not desperate enough to choose a Ryan Gosling movie at home over experiencing new collisions of the heart.

LOVE BITE #3: ALL THE VALENTINE’S DAYS WE ONCE HAD ARE LOST

Tap ⬆️ to listen to XOXO by @Cherub while you 📖 🎧

The hardest scars of St Valentine to accept are the ones that haven’t healed. Jewellery, romantic dinners and gestures of affection from our partner can’t mend these wounds. Because although they may be invisible to the world, they are always apparent as we carry them with us through life.

The scars are a reminder of what our relationship has become. The actions that created these wounds haunt us and affect the way we interact with our partners. They are blemishes that we cover with a veneer of togetherness in public and watch crumble as our partner leaves us in an empty bed minutes after receiving a 2am app notification.

When we are feeling this disconnected from our partners, sometimes the only Valentine’s Day gift we need is a space where we can be frankly honest with the one we love. What unfolds from our revelations could lead to the most remarkable Valentine’s Day you have ever experienced. Not because of its display of love in the traditional sense, but because from that day forward, a renewed appreciation for your relationship will begin to bloom again.

Despite the symptoms of St Valentine’s Day that overwhelm you this year. It’s important to remember that this day shouldn’t be one where affection is brought. It should be an opportunity for those who are a single to embrace your love for yourself. And as for those who are in relationships, Valentine’s Day is the one day of the year where you can introspectively reflect upon why your love is worthy of celebration.

So if you’re in a relationship, don’t settle for dinner at a restaurant. Instead, choose to experience something new together, something that terrifies you or a position that is sure to take you both to a destination that you haven’t yet travelled to as a couple.

As for for the singles out there who are still patiently searching for that someone whose love will become the new slang for your headphones. Leave the Katherine Heigl box sets where they belong and eliminate the impending chocolate consumption from your waistline. Because whether you end up passed out on your best mate’s sofa, grooving to Whitney Houston sandwiched between two men on a dance floor or experiencing the pleasures of a tongue exploring your gravel pit. Embracing Valentine’s Day is a much wiser alternative to mourning it.

Written by Samuel Elliot Snowden