Valentine's Weltschmerz

Valentine’s Day is an annual torture specifically for the single and lonely that far surpasses anything MI5 or the CIA could come up with. For weeks now, every shop, and many other businesses have been displaying hearts, flowers, sex in their windows with frightening focus and intensity. It has become impossible to ignore, and the ache engendered gets worse every year. Even a visit to the supermarket for a mundane bottle of milk or loaf of bread becomes a psychological torture cell at this time of year, weaving between the couples loading up their trolleys with champagne and luscious meals for two, and the tempting displays of flowers, cards, chocolates and other romantic indulgences.

Many try to blow off Valentine’s Day as a cynical commercial exploitation of an old tradition that makes a fortune for chocolatiers, florists and greeting card manufacturers, and yes, it probably is. But that doesn’t comfort those of us who are without love year after year after year. It would be the highlight of my decade if someone sent me a Valentine’s card this year, or even just gave me a hug, wished me ‘Happy Valentine’s Day’ and told me I was beautiful, or that they cared, in whatever sense. Hell, I’d be over the moon to have someone to do those things for - in fact, in many ways it would probably make me even happier than receiving one myself.

Today, having avoided all the magazine Valentine’s specials for weeks, I picked up an article, mostly by accident, that talked about ‘settling’ for Mr Alright, rather than waiting for the proverbial Prince. This article suggested that if one hadn’t married by 30, or found the right guy by then, then one ought to consider making the pragmatic, anti-romantic decision to take what you could get. It also pointed out that by the age of 30, a woman only retains 30% of her eggs, severely limiting her reproductive capacity, and gave the statistic that happiness peaks at 28 for a woman. All I could think was “God help me!”. I can’t convey on paper how much terror and desperation was in that thought. If this is as good as it gets, then I can’t face the next however many years, because frankly, I am more miserable now than I think I have ever been in my life. It physically hurts, and I can barely move for sadness and grief. Another article in the same magazine said that the average woman sleeps with 4 men in her lifetime, but wondered what was so great about being average. This evening, I am so lonely, and starved for physical contact and affection, that for the first time in my life, I seriously considered going out and getting drunk enough that I would fling myself on some poor unsuspecting male and hope, hope beyond all reason, that he was cad enough to take advantage of me. This is not normal. This is the product of weeks of build-up to an event from which I am utterly excluded, like so many other single people, an unsubtle drip, drip, drip – a Chinese water torture of the soul – of the importance of relationships, and the implication that those who are alone are in some way defective or unworthy. I really don’t need to be reminded of that – I already feel like a freak – twenty-seven, unkissed, virginal, never the object of any real flirtation or physical interest from any man. And so, so alone.

Our feminist forebears insisted that women should not feel the need for a male counterpart to feel complete. Logically, that’s fine, but physiologically, biologically, psychologically, the need exists at a deeper level than could ever be expunged or wholly suppressed. With the occasional exception of our lesbian sisters, women need men as much as men need women. We are equal, but we are not the same – we are designed to match up, two different parts of a whole. Love at first sight, love that starts as hate, love that grows and builds, pure, simple lust – these things are written, depicted, sung about time and time and time again. They are so much a part of the human conscious that it is not possible that they do not exist. Why then have I missed out so entirely? What is wrong with me that I have never experienced the moment of mutual want and/or attraction that seems to define the lives of so many? I only wish knew. Tomorrow, or rather, today, by the time I post this, publically, I will try to be magnanimous – I will wish my loved-up friends a Happy Valentine’s Day, and exhort my fellow singletons to keep the faith that next year will be different. Underneath, I will be screaming in pain. I am tired. I am stretched to the limits of my endurance, and I’m not sure I believe my own exhortations any more – the rantings of extremist hope against the torture of an impenetrable secret society.

None of this makes much sense, I’m afraid, and it’s not exactly erudite or overly articulate – the torture of terminal loneliness messes with the synapses pretty effectively. Valentine’s Day will soon be over until next year, but for today, I could give Werther a pretty good run for his money.