Why Valentine's Day is annoying

Today is Valentine's day, another day celebrating love and romance. People tend to like those things. So why does a day dedicated to them annoy so many?

It's Valentine's Day! Hurrah!

Except, maybe not. Even though the deep rooted desire to seek out and connect¹ with that ‘special someone’ is responsible for a ridiculous amount of human endeavour and achievement, the fact that there's a whole day dedicated to celebrating it is something that irks a great many people.

There are many complaints about it; it's too cheesy, it's tacky, it's corporate, it's awkward, it’s very off-putting to be ‘told’ what to do by societal pressure, it's just a money making scam that makes everything more expensive, but you feel obliged to pay it anyway because “it's Valentine's Day”.

All the complaints are valid. But there are also ways in which the experience of Valentine's Day affects our brains in ways they don't like.

And given how this is the point of this blog, here are some of them.

Oversimplifying a deeply complex process

Human emotions are incredibly complex, baffling things. And love is classed as complex emotion. Which should indicate just how complicated it really is.

The effort to obtain, and the experience of, love and romance, are long-winded, confusing, often draining affairs, filled with risk, anxiety, heartbreak, and copious trial and error.

Valentine’s day, or at least the modern cultural construct it’s become, doesn’t really acknowledge this. It mostly just simple sensory cues and straightforward expectations. Give flowers, say nice things in a card, cover everything with hearts, go for a nice meal² with violin music playing. There we go, romance completed!

However, anyone who’s actually got a romantic partner, one that they do actually love and care about, will know it’s not that easy. And could easily end up resenting the implication, delivered via generic brand of tat, that their deep and meaningful relationship can be boiled down to a handful of tired cliches.

Similarly, anyone who’s not been so lucky in love despite their best efforts, and is feeling isolated and lonely as a result, no doubt won’t enjoy the wall-to-wall suggestion that love is easy and freely available, which just a few token gestures.

The world is saying “All that work you’re doing? There’s no need for all that! Love is easy”. It means all our efforts in the area of love and relationships are being dismissed. And we don’t like dismissal, it makes us psychologically uncomfortable.

Rejection is not nice

Humans, being social creatures, don’t like rejection from others. It’s psychologically painful. This is especially true for romantic rejection, which is more significant to us, on multiple levels.

Valentine’s Day brings with it the pressure to approach people romantically. Not because you’re necessarily ready to or think it’s the best time due to yours and the other person’s situation and connection, but because… it’s Valentine’s day. It’s the done thing.

And this means the odds of experiencing romantic rejection are much higher. Especially if you’ve become convinced that the power of Valentine’s day makes others more amenable to romantic advances, and the object (target?) of your affection… disagrees.

This is presumably why many Valentine’s cards are anonymous; it allows the expression of affection, without the risk of rejection. Although, while it’s hopefully sweet and appreciated, for the recipient, anonymous affection creates romantic uncertainty, which can be quite stressful.

Basically, by exerting social pressure and expectation on people to make more romantic gestures, you’re bound to get a lot more romantic rejection. And that stuff can have lasting psychological impacts, ones that you would be well within your rights to attach to Valentine’s day.

Showy love is not all it seems

Valentine’s day isn’t just about love and romance, it’s about displaying love and romance. It’s all well and good just saying how much you love and appreciate your partner behind closed doors, but… where’s the money in that?

The candlelight dinners, the cards, the giant heart-clutching teddy bears, the expensive getaways and countless other gestures, they all involve a showy, outward-display aspect of love. This is something the more genuine, meaningful relationships can do without.

Don’t get me wrong, many established couples may well enjoy and appreciate grand romantic gestures, but they’re presumably not necessary. They’re a nice bonus, not the bare minimum requirment.

Social media has obviously amplified this, with countless arty multi-filtered pictures of people with their partners gazing into each other’s eyes, slathered in references to ‘my world’, and other saccharine declarations.

If, like me, you often find such public affection questionable, there’s good reason for this; studies suggest that a constant need to display your relationship publicly, often via social media, is indicative of insecurity or doubt in a relationship.

I suspect that a lot of people recognise this, even if it’s on a subconscious level. After all, there’s little that’s more personal than the romantic bond between two people. Making it as public as possible suggests other motivations are coming to the fore. Status? Attention? An urge to ‘fake it ‘til you make it’? Whatever it is, it suggests that the bond between you and your partner is not the only priority at work. Maybe not even the main one.

And if that’s the case, isn’t the relationship already on shaky ground? Not ‘built on sand’ or anything, but the concrete used for the foundations maybe wasn’t mixed right and is cracking already.

And Valentine’s day is all about this. If you’re in a relationship already, surrendering to the pressure of doing something public and overt purely because “it’s Valentine’s day”, you’re introducing external concerns and influences into your romantic relationship. And that can be detrimental.

It’s like if you’re an expert at home cooking and consistently make healthy delicious food, but on this one day you opt to gorge yourself sick on, say, discount cheeseburgers. Because that’s what everyone else is doing.

Not that there’s anything necessarily bad about discount cheeseburgers per se. They’re fine in moderation. But you’re reducing your quality of life if you binge on them just because you feel you’re supposed to.

And a relentless national campaign about how great discount cheeseburgers are, when you’ve eaten so many you feel rather sick? That would probably get quite annoying.

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If you’re looking for a gift for a partner who hates Valentine’s Day and wants nothing to do with it, consider my latest book.

1. Often in the physical sense. No judgement here.

2. The matter or which types of cuisine are acceptably ‘romantic’ is a whole other area for discussion.