Valentine’s Day does not have to be just for the lovers.
Feb. 14 goes by many names: St. Valentine’s Day, Valentine’s Day or Single Awareness Day, depending on whom you talk to.
According to CNN, approximately 151 million Valentine’s Day cards are exchanged every year.
While billions of dollars are being spent in the name of love, some of Troy’s single students are using the day to love themselves and their friends.
Haley Baker, a senior Spanish major from Jay, Florida, said she actually had more fun being single and with friends than being in a relationship on Valentine’s Day.
“I know I never had a relationship in high school and I hated Valentine’s Day, but when I finally had my first relationship my first year of college, I was super excited for Valentine’s Day,” Baker said. “But when it came around, I was actually disappointed with our plans.
“So the next year, after we’d broken up, I actually had more fun going out with my friends.”
Sam Sizemore, a junior elementary education major from Geneva, said that her plans didn’t include a significant other, but rather a day with her roommate.
“My plans are to eat dinner and see ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ with my roommate,” Sizemore said.
Cory Ray, a senior social science education major from Georgiana, had similar plans of just being with friends on the holiday.
“This is the first year in six years I haven’t had a valentine, and it’s refreshing to not have to take your girlfriend out to dinner and not buy chocolate or any other traditional Valentine’s Day gift,” Ray said. “So, I decided I am going to celebrate Valentine’s Day with one of my friends, by taking ourselves out to dinner and treating ourselves to a night out.”
Valentine’s Day does not have to be all about being with people whom you are in love with, but it can be about being with people whom you love in general. It doesn’t have to all be roses and romance.
My roommates and I are having our own holiday because each of us is either single or cannot spend the holiday with her boyfriend.
“Gal-entine’s Day” is our theme, and it is going to be a day of doing whatever we feel like doing, whether it be dinner and a movie or Netflix and chocolate.
Students shouldn’t feel like they have to be with someone on Valentine’s Day to make the day the best that it can be. The day is about love, but how it’s interpreted is up to the student.
“If you don’t have a good friend to spend time with, then treat yourself! After all, no one knows what you like best and will take care of you like you can,” Sizemore said.
And of course, there is one other perk of being single on Valentine’s Day.
“Chocolate,” Ray said. “The day after Valentine’s Day, when every store sells their chocolate for half off, is every chocoholic’s dream.
“You don’t have to share.”
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