Valentine’s Day just went by, and here I am with more stuff about Valentine’s, because I am evil and I like to make your soul cringe.
Usually, two kinds of posts are seen during the Valentine frenzy. The first caters to the joy-filled people that are riding on bubbles of sweet happiness, pink with breathless passion, overwhelmed with all the love in the air and hell-bent on painting the town red (or preferably pink). They are given advice on staging unique dates, unconventional gift ideas and plenty of sneaky ways to surprise your special someone.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, you have rants catering to disgust-filled people condemning Valentine’s, riding on winged freedom, flying the banner of no strings attached and hell-bent on painting the town red (or preferably black). They are given advice on how to make their friends in relationships jealous, party ideas for going wilder than ever before and sneaky ways of secretly securing a date.
For the first time in my life, I feel marginalized. Between the cute coupledom and the sassy single life, I, the mild person in the middle, find that I have nowhere to go. I am stuck in this No Man’s Land of long distance relationships where I am eyed suspiciously by both parties.
Having perennially been in a long-distance relationship for eight years now, never once have we had the chance to be together on Valentine’s Day, birthdays, holidays, festivals or anniversaries. Within my group of friends, the couples ask me about my plans for “special days,” to which I usually have no answer and the single souls find it odd that I am always hanging out with them.
Paradoxically, I never get asked for advice by either the single people when they are trying to find love or by the couples who are going through rough patches. They all think that I will not understand because a) I am already committed and do not know what it’s like to be alone, and b) I am in a long-distance commitment and do not know the problems of being in a ‘real’ relationship. And, as you can guess, I also have that one single friend who is always belting out relationship advice to others!
But, to be fair, the No Man’s Land is actually the best-of-both-worlds zone. I get to have my girls’ nights out, I get to have my cuddly days, I get to party and go on unplanned trips with friends and I also get somebody to text (if not come back home to). And though I can go on and on with this list, my point is, on Valentine’s Day, can we at NC State please take a moment to include the miserable people in the middle who can neither rant nor celebrate?
Where are the support groups for marginalized lovers? Where are the student clubs for those in long-distance relationships? Where are the date nights at the dining halls for people with unavailable dates? What about conducting research to develop breakthrough technologies to negate the distances? What about creating semester exchange programs to support your academic pursuits at the college of your loved one?
And while I mull over these questions after making date night plans with my girlfriends yet again, I wish you all had a blissful/bashful Valentine’s (applicable as per whichever party you belong to).
