Lunar Nova Posted February 14, 2023 Share Posted February 14, 2023 am I the only one who is a proud single pringle on valentines day, but still, kinda feels upset that they don't get chocolate or presents from a partner as all the "normal" people do? Like IK I can buy myself chocolate and gifts. but it isn't the same though. is that weird? 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maryland Posted February 14, 2023 Share Posted February 14, 2023 1 hour ago, KoconutBounty said: am I the only one who is a proud single pringle on valentines day, but still, kinda feels upset that they don't get chocolate or presents from a partner as all the "normal" people do? Like IK I can buy myself chocolate and gifts. but it isn't the same though. is that weird? Yeah, thats how I'm feeling, My friends who do have a partner I'm happy for, its just this day seems very upsetting for me (and maybe other aros). I feel like this day really isn't supposed to be for me, and being around people who do it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lunar Nova Posted February 14, 2023 Author Share Posted February 14, 2023 (edited) 17 minutes ago, Maryland said: Yeah, thats how I'm feeling, My friends who do have a partner I'm happy for, its just this day seems very upsetting for me (and maybe other aros). I feel like this day really isn't supposed to be for me, and being around people who do it. yeah, I only have one close friend who is dating, but I've dated before. i just want to be given chocolate. cus I have dated before I came out as AroAce, and IG it just makes me feel special Edited February 14, 2023 by KoconutBounty 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MulticulturalFarmer Posted February 14, 2023 Share Posted February 14, 2023 6 hours ago, Maryland said: Yeah, thats how I'm feeling, My friends who do have a partner I'm happy for, its just this day seems very upsetting for me (and maybe other aros). I feel like this day really isn't supposed to be for me, and being around people who do it. Do you feel like renaming it "Happy Palentine's Day" is worth it or just kinda meh? I'm on the fence about this one for sure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DeltaAro Posted February 14, 2023 Share Posted February 14, 2023 8 hours ago, KoconutBounty said: am I the only one who is a proud single pringle on valentines day, but still, kinda feels upset that they don't get chocolate or presents from a partner as all the "normal" people do? Like IK I can buy myself chocolate and gifts. but it isn't the same though. is that weird? Very relatable. It's normal to like attentive gifts. I dislike February 14th as a date, I always feel so excluded on this day. Though I got chocolate and even a rose (which I declined, but took the chocolate 😄) today. But this was just promotional gifts. Which is not the same. But if you find yourself really yearning for romance and pining at all happy romantic couples and being envious, we have an orientation for it: cupioromantic. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AstrophelDragon Posted February 14, 2023 Share Posted February 14, 2023 1 hour ago, MulticulturalFarmer said: Do you feel like renaming it "Happy Palentine's Day" is worth it or just kinda meh? I'm on the fence about this one for sure. My question is, is Valentine's day only meant for romantic love? Because while it certainly seems to center around that, there are plenty of people who make it about friendship and family too. Do we have to separate it out like that, or can the general experience of love/attachment (although ik not everyone identifies with "love") just have a day for celebration? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SkyTuneRein Posted February 15, 2023 Share Posted February 15, 2023 (edited) Eh, water off a duck's back for me. Edited February 15, 2023 by SkyTuneRein Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hemogoblin Posted February 15, 2023 Share Posted February 15, 2023 (edited) 8 hours ago, AstrophelDragon said: My question is, is Valentine's day only meant for romantic love? Because while it certainly seems to center around that, there are plenty of people who make it about friendship and family too. Do we have to separate it out like that, or can the general experience of love/attachment (although ik not everyone identifies with "love") just have a day for celebration? Interesting question! Interesting because Valentine's Day originally actually had nothing at all to do with love. Valentine's Day originated as a Christian celebration marked with a feast to celebrate the martyr, St. Valentine. Valentine was minister for Christians being persecuted under the Roman Empire. He's become associated with courting/romantic love but is more accurately the saint of Terni (a city), beekeeping, and epilepsy. (Pretty random assortment. I cannot figure out what the connection between beekeeping and epilepsy may have been or if they were just things he was known for caring about?) He was martyred on Feb 14th, hence the celebration being today. This gets even more interesting because Valentine was actually beheaded because he was caught continuing to perform marriage ceremonies for young couples after the Roman Emperor Claudius banned marriage and engagements in Rome, believing that love for their wives/families was stopping Roman men from joining the army. So you would think this would legitimately be a reason for Valentine's Day to be associated with love. And yet... Valentine's has been celebrated since around the 8th century, but it wasn't until the 14th/15th centuries that it became associated with romantic love and courting. It's thought that this shift occurred for a few reasons. The first is that "courtly love" (literally performing grand acts to show love/loyalty/dedication, most associated with knights going out on grand quests) began to emerge as a concept during this time, somewhat loosely inspired by the grand mating displays of birds - the connotations being that birds start to perform these rituals in early spring around the this holiday time. For humans, this meant gifting flowers, candy, and cards. That's right - the holiday didn't even become associated with romantic love for the potentially logical reason it could have been. It just became romantic because people decided to become more and more ridiculously grand with their romantic relationships and Valentine's was a seemingly convenient day to celebrate this on. !? (There is an unsubstantiated legend that while he was jailed and awaiting his death, Valentine wrote a letter to the jailer's daughter, signed "From Your Valentine" and that's where Valentine cards derived from. It's interesting that this became romantic because in some versions of the legend, Valentine cured the jailer's daughter of blindness, thus being her healer, and in others, they are usually referred to as friends. So there isn't even a seemingly romantic connotation here.) Of note, it is a standing tradition in Italy that keys ("St. Valentine's keys") are swapped, not only to romantic partners (a symbol of "unlocking each other's hearts") but also to children in order to ward off epilepsy. So there are traditions even today that aren't simply romantic. In Costa Rica, Mexico, and Puerto Rico, Valentine's Day is called two names, one of which translates to "Day of Love and Friendship"). Aside from being a romantic holiday, celebrating friendship and doing things for your friends is common on Valentine's in Latin American countries such as these. Apparently in Afghanistan, before the 21st century (before Taliban rule), poetry is common for Valentine's celebrations and folk were using it to make political statements about the erosion of their freedoms. It sounds like this was rather generational, yet common enough to end up on wiki. In Bangladesh, they celebrate pretty much any bond, including parent/child, friends, and teacher/student bonds. Note this is rather recent, beginning only in 1993. Before that - and to some still - it's celebrated as an Islamic day of anti-authoritarianism. Japan gets really interesting. Again, it wasn't introduced until later, first being celebrated in 1936. In the 1950s, it began picking up as a commercial holiday to sell chocolate (while other gifts are fairly uncommon). In fact, there was one such advert that was mistranslated and led to a movement where women were supposed to gift male coworkers chocolate. I'm not clear on how common it is, but apparently women have felt obligated to have to gift chocolate to all their male coworkers, leading to a ranking system of "obligatory chocolates" (cheap chocolates for less liked/desirable male coworkers) and "true chocolates" (expensive/deluxe chocolates for more liked/desirable male coworkers). This custom continued at least through the 1980s, when the marshmallow industry rallied to try and start a competing holiday in March where men would gift marshmallows to female coworkers. (Fun fact, this is referred to as "White Day" and while it never took off in Japan, both South Korea and Taiwan celebrate a version of Valentine's/White Day where each binary gender takes a day to gift to the other.) So Valentine's is not really romantic in Japan; their romantic holiday is apparently on what others of us may celebrate as Christmas Eve. In both Estonia and Finland, their holiday name for Valentine's translates to "Friend Day" and friendship is celebrated today rather than romantic love. While Greece currently celebrates Valentine's as a romantic holiday, this wasn't the case until the 1990s. It's unclear on if this holiday used to be celebrated as something else or wasn't celebrated before then, but in Greek tradition, the Saint who represented people in romantic love had a feast day on July 3rd instead. ***Please note I'm largely summarizing from wikipedia for all this info. IN CONCLUSION: A) Valentine's Day originally had nothing to do with romantic love at all in the first place; largely it exists today primarily as a commercial holiday to promote candy/card/flower sales B) Several countries already have non-romantic celebrations associated with Valentine's Day, some of which are prioritized above romantic celebrations C) Holidays can evolve over time So I decree that Valentine's Day can be for whatever you want it to be for. There are no actual rules, just common understandings. Valentine's Day was bastardized to be romantic. Bastardize it more for whatever suits your purposes! There was a post going around on tumblr about a couple in a queerplatonic relationship who decided Valentine's Day should actually be Jeff Goldblum Day, the day for appreciating Jeff Goldblum, such as by watching any of his movies. Personally, this is what I decided to go with and re-watched the original Jurassic Park trilogy (even though Goldblum wasn't in the third, I couldn't just not watch it). :P Edited February 15, 2023 by hemogoblin 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lunar Nova Posted February 15, 2023 Author Share Posted February 15, 2023 14 hours ago, DeltaAro said: Very relatable. It's normal to like attentive gifts. I dislike February 14th as a date, I always feel so excluded on this day. Though I got chocolate and even a rose (which I declined, but took the chocolate 😄) today. But this was just promotional gifts. Which is not the same. But if you find yourself really yearning for romance and pining at all happy romantic couples and being envious, we have an orientation for it: cupioromantic. I'm not really sure im looking for the romance part, just to feel special enough to get something. although my Great Aunt did buy me and my bro a lollipop/sucker thing. 9 hours ago, SkyTuneRein said: Eh, water off a duck's back for me. I'm sorry i dont understand what that means- could you explain pls? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SkyTuneRein Posted February 15, 2023 Share Posted February 15, 2023 (edited) I'm not so bothered by people not showing affection towards me. I've gotten used to doing unappreciated or thankless work too, and at least I don't have to say "thanks" and such. 😸 Edited February 15, 2023 by SkyTuneRein Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lunar Nova Posted February 15, 2023 Author Share Posted February 15, 2023 17 minutes ago, SkyTuneRein said: I'm not so bothered by people not showing affection towards me. I've gotten used to doing unappreciated or thankless work too, and at least I don't have to say "thanks" and such. 😸 ooh okay! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SilentShadows Posted February 16, 2023 Share Posted February 16, 2023 I think it's a corporate money grab and don't understand the dating part... but candy! Woo! Someone brought in candy for one of my classes which was nice (small major in college = you take classes with basically the same people). I brought in candy for the class too lol, and gave my 3 friends these cute frog plushies from the dollar store. I'm bad at showing affection but I tried a little. For me, even if the holiday is mid, I feel like it's fun to change it into something I enjoy. Romance? Nahhhh. Friends and Candy? Heck yeah! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lunar Nova Posted February 16, 2023 Author Share Posted February 16, 2023 ooh nice Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glypharia.exe Posted February 16, 2023 Share Posted February 16, 2023 i spend the day and hanging out with friends if i can. but getting candy or flowers, even from a friend, is nice 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lunar Nova Posted February 16, 2023 Author Share Posted February 16, 2023 14 minutes ago, glypharia.exe said: i spend the day and hanging out with friends if i can. but getting candy or flowers, even from a friend, is nice yeah, i agree there. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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