Anti-Valentine's Day isn't about singles saying no to love

London: Samantha hasn’t exactly given up on love, but she’s fighting the idea of finding it around heart-shaped cardboard or whatever cheaper substitute the Chinese may have found to sell mass-produced encouragement to love. She isn’t just ignoring those cardboards in red, as she has for some years now, but has decided this year to resist them actively. She’s headed for an Anti-Valentine’s party. There are many to pick from in London this year, certainly many more than last year. A lot of London is turning its back on red hearts. If only because the thought of wearing shades of red descending into crimson, both within and without, and heading out to speak standard words of alleged intensity under a red balloon appears, well, embarrassing. [caption id=“attachment_1389849” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  AP[/caption] Annie, who is married, is joining Samantha for a girls evening out, along with another single friend. The party of three is saying, like the growing numbers of ‘anti-Valentinists’, that it’s just fine to be single, and to not even be looking; to be open without necessarily looking, anyway. ‘Roses are red/violets are blue/I’d rather be single/than be with you…’ this and its variations are the emerging anthem of Anti-Valentine’s Day. London stands as a natural home to defy the saint who might have fired those dubious arrows in the direction of the single; this is a heavily single city. In the 2011 census, the number of adult Londoners living alone exceeded for the first time those living within couple position. Nearly a third of all households in London comprised a single person living alone. And where would they go on Valentine’s Day? Not to any of the anonymous others in the same category who are a parallel but not a connection. The Anti-Valentine’s Day is to celebrate a refusal to seek such connections necessarily. True, millions of these singles are not headed for some Anti-Valentine’s party either: but London has begun now, more and more, to offer singles a day to celebrate singlehood, on the very day when the red brigade celebrates the opposite. Most singles will ignore the red; but some are partying out to fight them. London has set up all sorts of counters to red that anyone could think of - and many that they wouldn’t. Singles can join an expedition to the Royal Observatory to gaze at the stars to figure out if they’re star-crossed. Or they can gather at the house of the poet John Keats who the arrows of the saint of love missed by a long shot. London restaurants are offering tempting deals for solo dining. Some have set out seriously opposed counter-shows; the Prince Charles Cinema in Leicester Square in the heart of London is showing the emphatically unromantic 1980s film My Bloody Valentine. A particularly soft magazine has just carried an article to watch out for five particular signs that a relationship is ending. You might save some money on red cardboard among other things. A pub is offering a Broken Hearts bar crawl for the evening. Many are inviting guests to to wear green to celebrate singlehood (though amber is allowed to teasers and red is for the taken). One bar is offering a ‘Kill Cupid’ evening to defy the “nauseating events of Valentine’s Day,” with the reminder that Cupid rhymes with Stupid. A horror show is on offer to “escape the overbearingly happy couples and awkward dates on Valentine’s Day.” The Barts Pathology Museum is offering taxidermy on large rats as a better alternative to the red heart stuff. Invitation to a pub party warns that “among the lengthy list of forbidden things are pet names, flowers, winking and, er, the colour red.” Also, “all sickly sweet pictures of giant hearts.” Another offers a getting together without introductions in an evening of “speed hating” where strangers must rant about all that they cannot stand – including possibly one another. “I don’t believe anyone really likes Valentine’s Day,” says Samantha. “All that pressure for gifts and single roses. It’s just embarrassing.” The ‘anti-Valentinists’ are fighting the stamp of money on a show of love, that this is a day when couples must measure love in price tags. And feel forced to declare an awful partner awesome. Red will remain of course an enormous red force to counter. The Americans are expecting to spend 20 billion dollars in Valentine’s goods this year. The saint has money and tradition on his side. Who could count what the Anti Valentine’s troupes are not spending, or choosing not to. It’s still early days to rake in big money from the sale of break-up survival kits such as offering a knife block to be imagined to be your ex. Or figure the value of selling old gifts from an ex on ebay. But Anti-Valentine’s Day this has a respectable official label: Valentine’s Day is also the Singles Awareness Day (SAD). Perhaps that day is most truly observed without company. The invitations to celebrate Anti-Valentine’s come usually in partnership with others, and there lies the little trap. Secretly somewhere everyone knows that an Anti Valentine’s party is a singles party really - it announces single status in spirited disguise. Samantha is after all only saying no to Valentine’s, not to love. It’ll still a Friday evening. And that’s as good an evening as any for something to happen.