1. Envy:
When I was younger, I used to watch a Nickelodeon show called “As Told by Ginger.” Though I’m sure this TV show was not the origin of the phrase, the opening theme featured the lyric “the grass is always greener on the other side” which applies perfectly here. Those with significant others are probably wishing the holiday didn’t have to be such a big deal, and those without are probably wishing they had a big deal to make. A wise Cosmopolitan article once said “you always want what you can’t have.” I say “do what you would with most Cosmopolitan articles – ignore it.”
2. Sadness:
You’ve been having an off day – nay, an off week. You got a text, and perked up at the promise of companionship. But the text was from CVS on the Corner, telling you your prescription was ready. When you went to CVS, your prescription wasn’t ready. You left and got another text, once again feeling a flutter of hope. It was CVS again. Your prescription was ready. My advice? Get your prescription, bypass the Valentine’s Day candy, and head straight to the Cadbury Crème Eggs. Easter will be here soon enough.
3. Camaraderie:
You probably saw the Galentine’s Day episode of Parks and Recreation and thought “wow, my group of friends is equally as single, and enamored with gifts and brunch!” Spend some time with your friends, split a few bottles of wine. Or, better yet, make a group trek out to Clemons, because it’s a Sunday and you probably have a lot of reading to catch up on. Nothing screams camaraderie like reading stacks on stacks in stacks. You’re bonding simultaneously on an emotional and intellectual level, which just can’t be said about swiping right on Tinder.
4. Confusion:
I haven’t quite given up on the “new me” part of my new year, so isn’t it a little soon to be celebrating someone other than myself? Valentine’s Day is the nation’s most exclusionary holiday, and it’s quite unclear about celebration tactics for those of us who are without a significant other. If we’re adhering strictly to biology, aren’t we all Cupid, in our own right? We were all once naked babies, and although many of us may have grown up considerably, it doesn’t mean we can’t still feel connected to our roots. Therefore, shouldn’t we just be celebrating ourselves?
5. Wonder:
You’re excited by the possibility of finding love in a hopeless place, and you wonder if this will be your year (or if this weekend will be your weekend). You stroll down the Corner to class thinking about how beautiful the day is, and wondering if it is physically possible to grasp the love you feel in the air. You wonder if you should stop for Little John’s, but decide Take It Away is a little more romantic. You wonder if anyone else is thinking the same thing. You wonder how embarrassing it would be if people could actually hear the things you think.
6. Indifference:
Or put in a better way, “indifference.” The casual, not-so-casual “this holiday is fine, I’m fine” mentality. You’re the Switzerland of mid-February, striving for an impartial and color-bind existence. To you, pink is just a convenient blending of red and white, and the three together simply make up a necessary part of the color wheel. Your friends most likely hate the fact that you can never pick a restaurant, and you probably always end up in the middle seat on long car rides because it really doesn’t bother you, you promise. Though I’ll admit that many should take a page out of your book and chill out, please refrain from using the phrase “I don’t care” today.
7. Rage:
Do you ever find yourself wondering why love always feels like a battlefield? Do you believe that yes, it is definitely too late now to say sorry? This is not rage in the sense that your goal for the night is to stay at Trinity ‘till the lights come on, but the rage you feel when your professor assigns 200 pages of reading for one night. If you feel like you can’t control such intense emotion, maybe it’ll be better for you to stay inside all day and not subject the outside world to your feelings. Punch a pillow, or better yet, watch a Tarantino movie: there’s enough violence there to quell any level of anger.
8. Happiness:
Love is in the air and you’re feeling alive! Whether you’re happily in love or just happy to be here, Valentine’s Day for you means showering everyone you know with affection. Double points if you purchase those Valentines every child had to give out in elementary school -- you were probably the one decided to buy them for the whole class to include everyone before you were told it was mandatory. Here’s a challenge for the day: speak only in conversation heart candies.
9. Lack of amusement:
I wanted to use the word “unamusement” here, but according to the end-all-be-all source of knowledge that is Merriam-Webster, it’s apparently not a word. To that end I am also distinctly unamused, but nowhere near my lack of amusement towards Valentine’s Day. Maybe I’m a special case: the general existence of people tends to have me seeing red anyway, but the intentional overuse of its various hues has me unable to see any other color. Can’t a girl just eat some blue M&M’s in peace? Maybe I don’t want everything to be filled with raspberry. Or how about not stopping in the middle of the crosswalk to kiss each other – I have places to go and people to see, and this is not helping the cause.
10. Love:
I promise, I’m not a complete Grinch. To me, love is the combination of all of these emotions, most likely plus or minus a few I’ve missed. According to the experts at Yahoo Answers: “Although it is written all over the internet what love is i still don't understand not because i'm dum but because i feel emotions all mixing up like a blender and i get confused if love is the over all feeling“ (sic). You can’t get much more concise and conclusive than that!
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