by Émélie Beaudry
Once a year, there’s a day dedicated to love. Freshly into the new year, it’s a time for couples to remind themselves of how much they care for one another, to shower each other with gifts, and to strengthen their shared bond. Every store is plastered in shades of red, pink, and white, in frills, hearts, and little cupids with their bows drawn. It’s as though the whole world screams: REJOICE, FOR YOU HAVE FOUND YOUR OTHER HALF. Those who have, buy chocolate, give flowers, and have romantic dates together. The rest of us are expected to put ourselves out there, to keep searching, or to give up and resign ourselves to loneliness.
For many, modern Valentine’s Day celebrations are second nature. But to myself and those like me, this holiday feels foreign. Once a year, it creates a stifling pressure to be in love, in a very specific, restrictive way. As an asexual person, I lie outside of this specific binary, and because of that, I have a lot of big, complicated thoughts about love, sex, and relationships.
Growing up, I rarely thought about romantic relationships, and even now, they’re rarely at the forefront of my mind. Because of this, I am acutely aware of how much they’re shoved in our faces. I can count on one hand the number of tv shows or movies I’ve seen that portray a strong platonic relationship as equally or more important than a romantic one. Too often, the romance is central, with everything else orbiting it. Every fandom space fixates on shipping characters together. Even non romance-centric media will have a romantic subplot. It seems inescapable. This is only the tip of the iceberg, too. Briefly skimming what is a much larger, more complicated topic, there seems to be somewhat of a shift in our perspectives on friendships. Increasingly, as our culture veers towards hyper-individualism, our friendships become more transactional. Sharing our problems is ‘venting’, asking for help is ‘emotional labour’. I reject this idea. I wholly believe that our relationships with other people are what make life worth living, but I have a gripe with the idea that these relationships must be romantic.
So this Valentine’s season, I want to send love to my friends. When I’m bombarded by the overwhelming pressure to find my other half, to be part of a whole, you remind me that I’m already part of a whole. Every person that I meet and care about is a node in the ever-complicated spiderweb that makes up my heart. My heart is shared with every late night text, every last-minute hangout, every lunch, joke, and problem shared.
The world is big and scary, and society tells us that we need to find that one, single person that will make us happy. But worry not, reader, for the truth is much simpler, and infinitely more complicated— you are a patchwork of every person you have ever loved, and who has ever loved you. And as long as you remember that, you are never truly alone.