14 reasons why Valentine’s Day isn’t all that bad

It’s that time of the year. Valentine’s Day. Hearts, flowers, economically destructive sales, ecologically destructive confetti, cheap chocolates and cheaper motives for the whole world to see. While it’s usually tradition for most of us to dismiss it as a farce that lets stationers and chocolate makers take their annual holiday to the Bahamas, I’ve pledged to be nicer (less cynical) this year. As I look forward to 2017 with a sense of optimism that can only be the result of too many wine spritzers, here are 14 reasons why Valentine’s Day (never call it V-Day) isn’t all that bad: 1. Your Grindr is going to be very, very busy. No one wants to be alone on Valentine’s Day — especially the torso across the street, who asks you for a dick pic every alternate night. Three glasses of red wine and one life-changing rom-com later, you are going to be swiping right faster than the speed of light. Because everyone else certainly is. 2. Getting sex is as likely as getting stuck in rush hour traffic on a Monday. Whether you’ve just had a row over who’ll pay for dinner. Whether you are on a self-imposed sex ban. Whether you’ve been hopelessly single for two years. Whether you are into girls. Whether you are not. Whether your boyfriend is vacationing in Cambodia. Whether you are vacationing in Cambodia. You’ll have sex, whether you like it or not. But mostly, you’ll like it. 3. Being passive aggressive can be poignantly cute. Are you upset that your significant other got you yellow tulips instead of blue orchids? Cherish that one day of the year (apart from your birthday) when you can mull your way into a Hallmark card and live to tell the tale (over canapés and champagne, nonetheless) at your engagement party years later. 4. Second guessing your Valentine’s day gifts keeps your relationships alive. Sexy underwear last year, but a bottle of Hugo Boss’s XY this time around? Uh oh. Is your S.O implying that you have B.O? Stress-eat an entire chocolate cake as you scrub through three showers tonight. 5. You’ll feel extremely forgiving towards all your past relationships. Especially towards that ex-boyfriend who broke your heart over group text five years ago, the one you can’t get to love you back. Just like you can’t get to unsend all the drunken emojis you sent him an hour ago. 6. You can judge your self worth by the number of roses you are sent. Or you can sneakily send them yourself. 7. It makes being single comfortable. As you watch couples feed each other sugar-frosted cupcakes and dedicate long forgotten love ballads, make peace with the fact that you’ll be snug as a blanket in the post-Valentine’s Day slump – that short period of time when men and women break up over insignificant things — such as deleted sexts and mysterious bouts of chlamydia. 8. Because it’s also the best time to be single. Get yourself to a bar. Surround yourself with lonely singles and couples who can’t deal with the Valentine’s Day stress. Watch it all implode as you sip one whiskey sour after the other. Go feel like a kid in a candy store. 9. Restaurants have the best deals, because they need them as much as we do. Every cozy little café is going to be full of young couples, confetti, unlimited bar deals and that lone single who’s there just for the pizza and the accompanying one-on-one beer (side note: that’s most probably me.) 10. It’s the only day of the year everyone feels loved. No one’s going to judge you if you get your mom to send you a valentine, and then pretend like it was your secret admirer. You might be the most despicable person in the world or the human personification of the smiley face, everyone’s open to the idea of some no-strings-attached love on February the 14th. After all, there’s nothing an oxytocin boost can’t solve (severe bouts of Tuesday-induced depression included). 11. Also, you can love wine guiltlessly. Honestly speaking, if I can enjoy (read: guzzle) a bottle (or five) at lunch without being judged by the maître’d’, I am not complaining — especially when I stagger home just in time for tea at 5 pm. 12. You won’t get hate for listening to Adele on loop. You might be checking off every gay stereotype in the trove as you listen to Adele’s 21 on repeat, but at least you’ll do it knowing that you’ll die (probably alone) a happy man. Extra points if you stuff your face with dark chocolate as you bawl your way through ‘Someone Like You’. 13. It’s every cynic’s early Christmas present Love might be seeping in the air like the influenza virus, but it still doesn’t stop a cynic from hating Valentine’s Day as if they were the Grinch on Christmas. Part of the fun is to wait till you see someone writing out the twelfth verse of his love-themed sonnet and barge right in like the plot twist of every M Night Shyamalan movie, just to tell him how silly he sounds. 14. Because let’s face it; love is love is love is love is love! Mass consumerism aside, my heart thaws a few degrees still the same. Now pardon me while I stuff it with macarons and unicorn dust.