Honor all your friends on Valentine’s Day
Illustration by John Hiller/Staff Illustrator
Destyni Cravens
Opinion Columnist
dcravens@uab.edu
In a world of hookups, technology and Tinder, Valentine’s day has become a huge joke. People are becoming more accustomed to meeting people online rather than utilizing face-to-face interaction.
“42 percent of cell-owning 18-29 year-olds in serious relationships say their partner has been distracted by their mobile phone while they were together,” according to Pew Research Center.
Starting in kindergarten, young children begin celebrating Valentine’s Day with sweet little candy grams and homemade, crafted shoeboxes. As they grow older, this holiday becomes a romantic date-night for them and their significant others. But how can one celebrate if they don’t have a boyfriend or girlfriend.
A woman’s girlfriends, however, cannot be faked because those are the girls one spends the majority of her time with. Because of this, recognizing a day that is just for the girls is both beneficial and necessary for strengthening these bonds. When society expects couples to utilize Valentine’s Day as a day for romantic rekindling but refuse to acknowledge the existence of Galantine’s Day, it shows that society is only comfortable with expectations rather than reality. Friendships also have the potential to offer more companionship than a romantic relationship simply because of the history behind them.
While your boyfriend or girlfriend of six months may mean a lot to you, your friend of six years probably deserves the same level of appreciation. Many friendships also do not have the tension that relationships have of making sure everything is perfect.
There is no need for a perfect first date or perfect outfit with one’s friends because friendship is based around commonalities not impressing the other person. When society over-emphasizes the importance of a relationship and fails to accept that friendships are just as important, individuals feel the need to fit in with this misconception, thus putting their friends on the back-burner. When Valentine’s Day rolls around, do not feel obligated to go out with your boyfriend or stay cooped up alone. Instead, have a girl’s night and enjoy the friends that make you feel alive.
