Valentine’s Day rapidly approaches, dropping our standards for Tinder rights — or rather, increasing the frequency of jokes about cheap chocolate and dates with fictional characters.
Us Hopkins kids operate in the default of singlehood. Not even singlehood, but aloneness. Not even aloneness, but a political approach to it.
Oftentimes we refuse to form even proper friendships with people who we quite like to hang out with, finding the cost not worth the benefits.
“Single-serving life, that’s what I’m after,” we say. “It’s great having debates with you about the ethical consequences of gummy bears, but pretend I don’t exist before and after we accidentally see each other in the common room.”
“I don’t need anyone,” scoffs junior Sherlock Holmes. “I solve my own problems. Watson is just a kid I keep around to record the process.”
Of course, we’re right. To quote C.S. Lewis, “Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art. It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival.”
In matters of our relationships with people, it seems like we’re too smart for our own good. We don’t forgive ourselves and our miscalculated, irrational feelings. It’s no surprise that in our Russian Classics class everyone was rooting for the main character to remain a nihilist who suppresses and controls his emotions.
That’s us: people taken by surprise and startled when unplanned heartache hits, people unsure of how to interpret the signals, who are wonderfully inept in the art of flirting. (Will staring do the trick?) There is no time for all that mess; we have cancer to cure and potential to realize. Ain’t nobody got time for that.
We approach Valentine’s Day with the same caution. “Oh, another capitalistic scheme, like the b-day of Jesus. It would be nice to have someone special, but none of these people will do.” Let’s make it different this time.
Romance may seem like it’s from another planet when we’re viciously murdering time in the library or ditching Baltimorean bullets while trying to gain the respect of the leaders of nearby gangs, but we can still romanticize our lives. Be honest about feelings. Make more gestures. Pay attention.
It’s a beautiful thing to know that someone’s on your team no matter when or why — maybe it’s worth more than we think. Intellectual connection is great, but if we were also more empathetic, we could rule the world. It’s a whole range of experiences, filters on life that we skip for our fear of losing control or wasting time.
Swap the rationalization for romanticizing 2k15. Stop the awkwardness, the clinging, the fear of rejection, the unanswered messages or this obsession with definitions. Trust guts. Trust life more.
Single life can also be romanticized. If anything, romanticizing can be a tool to a better self. Romanticize wearing long flowery skirts, and pretend to be a fairy queen — yes, males too. Romanticize a healthy lifestyle by personalizing your body. Make-believe you’re in a romcom when you need to make the grand move in a relationship. Post songs online for a particular person to see. Pensively read a book on a bench.
I recall the days of my youth spent imitating Blair Waldorf and only half-regret the huge red headbands and classic green coats. I also channeled her determination to get into a good school and it made my SAT preparation more bearable. Romanticizing can be fun and useful, if you are careful in your choices.
Happy Valentine’s Day to cat ladies and pre-meds, lacrosse players (wink) and Phi Mu girls, FFC workers and security guards...
To people unsure if they’re spending their lives with the right people, to theater madmen and people in fedoras playing staring games in the Gilman Atrium, to people who always share how much they drank last night or how much reading they have to do, to professors who mention how many years they have been married to their wonderful wives...
To students who worry if this is a date, virgins who say virginity is a social construct, kids hopelessly in love with their casual hook-ups, people not over their former beaus or who have never had a Valentine...
And, last but the luckiest, to lovers.
Love is madness; do something inappropriately grand.
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