Galentine’s, Valentine’s and Romanticizing Life

After this Valentine’s weekend where cupid shot me with an arrow of romantic and platonic love, I realized a lot about the holiday and reflected on my past Valentine’s experiences.

Over the past five years of my adulthood, different relationships shaped my expectations of love and refined my taste in what I want, especially on Valentine’s Day. A sad but true and very common narrative that many women can relate to and even myself can say is nothing is worse than spending the day of love with someone (most of the time a man) who finds the holiday “not that big of a deal”. The lack of effort and attention to detail from a man you are in a relationship with floods the body with a gut wrenching feeling of disconnection and fraudulent love.

Similarly, if your partner at least does the bare minimum of buying you flowers and a box of chocolates, it can be perceived as disingenuous or not from the heart if they come home with a wilted bouquet and those raspberry filled chocolate that you hate.

I have spent Valentine’s by myself with zero romantic plans on the agenda and I have spent Valentine’s showered by my close girl friends.

Every year those close girlfriends also get a token of my love through goody bags filled with unique gifts personal to them. My goal when giving gifts is to show the receiver that they are being paid attention too. Because we all know to be loved is to be seen and I really stand behind that. Once I evaluated my own self worth, the least someone who truly loves you could do is notice the little things you say, like or do.

But my true bone I want to pick about the holiday is how it can look, feel and extend through your day-to-day life.

In my opinion, Valentine’s Day on social media is a yearly check in for us single people to see how our taken friends and mutuals are doing, lol. Seriously, as a single person my vision is not impaired by those rose colored glasses. I have noticed (with background knowledge of the couples day-to-day) that the longer the social media Valentine’s Day message is, the more troubles in the relationship. Like, write them a love letter and give it to them personally, your friends and the world do not need to be validated that you are still together. On the other side of that is the rumor making when someone does not post their partner on Valentine’s Day. That couple can still be enjoying their day without boasting about it on Instagram.

Yet again, in my opinion Valentine’s Day can feel lonely. You just walk into the grocery store and heart balloons, teddy bears and candy slap you in the face before you can even put your purse in the cart. But just remember, those “Be Mine” cards can totally be for your girlfriends.

Galentine’s celebrations are a popular phenomenon that gained popularity over this past decade. I think Galentine’s is a beautiful representation of girlhood and the power of friendship.

Before you think you are not loved, think about all of the unconditional, platonic love you surround yourself with more often than romantic love that can leave you questioning. Plus, platonic love is more fulfilling and a bigger dopamine hit than any romantic love’s highs.

If you are someone who is quite the grouch on that day, that jealousy can be spun into self-love.

Write a love letter to yourself, buy yourself those flowers and chocolate or take yourself out to dinner. That also does not have to be just once a year. Being in love with life and yourself everyday manifests a very romantic life where love expectations never fall short!

I hope everyone had a day full of love and are enjoying their day off today!

XOXO,

☮️