In case you were wondering, Feb. 13-15 used to mark the Roman feast of Lupercalia, during which two young Roman men would sacrifice a dog and two goats, dress in goatskin and run around the city whacking people with bloody strips of skin from the aforementioned goats. If you happened to get hit by a bloody goatskin strip, you would avoid infertility and pain in childbirth.
While Lupercalia seems like a pretty great festival, we have since moved on to St. Valentine’s Day, which commemorates the martyrdom of St. Valentine, who was thrown to the lions for marrying Christians. In the made-for-TV movie we used to watch in a stuffy Sunday school classroom, St. Valentine was shown restoring vision to some blind girl. Before being eaten by lions, he gave her a paper heart, signed with “Your Valentine.” I strongly suspect the made-for-TV movie was not historically accurate.
Sometime after St. Valentine but before the invention of mass-produced Hallmark cards, Chaucer wrote a poem stating that birds found their mates on Valentine’s Day. This is problematic, because February is still winter in England, and it’s not prime mating season for birds. Yet somehow, by the early modern period, Feb. 14 had gained vague connotations of having something or other to do with love. And by the 19th century, before Hallmark even came onto the scene, there was a thriving industry in Valentine’s Day stationery.
But we are not birds, nor do most of us use stationery, so we have to celebrate Valentine’s Day in our own way. Might I suggest Valentine’s Day pong? It is a thing I just made up, where the cups are arranged in a heart and filled with pink Andre. And there’s always the tried and true “hide in the library all day studying for a midterm” method, though that’s not super likely because this year’s V-Day falls on a Friday.
There will be dates at Canoe Club and Pine. There will also be dates in FoCo for those in less committed relationships. There will be guys who forget about it entirely and girls pretending they don’t mind.
People like to go on and on about how “no one dates at Dartmouth,” which for the most part seems true. People are either “casually seeing each other” (a.k.a. hooking up) or have been devoted to each other since sophomore summer.
Some people always seem to have a significant other, while others still pine after that chick they asked to formal once. We could blame the D-Plan, or the undateableness of the late adolescent American male. We could blame the fact that no one has any free time due to pledge term, labs or corporate recruiting. We could blame the hookup culture, though studies show that it is a made-up entity that exists mostly in the minds of undergraduates and New York Times trend piece writers.
Or we could stop assigning blame. There’s no rule that says you have to have a significant other in college. There’s no requirement to bring someone you are moderately attracted to to formal. One of the great things about the fact that “no one dates at Dartmouth” is that no one dates at Dartmouth. Being in a relationship is by no means a reflection of your self-worth. A lot of awesome people are single. And many are in relationships, though they tend to be slightly less awesome because they have boyfriends and girlfriends to distract them from drinking wine and watching Netflix with you. Very few people are actually contemplating getting a “ring by spring,” no matter what those people you sort of vaguely remember from middle school are posting on Facebook about getting engaged at SSU (Stereotypical Southern University).
Of course, a lot of people are single and would really like a Valentine’s Day buddy or have had a crush on one person forever but can’t reveal their unrequited love. I feel you, unhappy single folk. I haven’t been that successful navigating the Dartmouth love scene either — I’m more of a Brienne of Tarth than a Margaery Tyrell. But what would we talk about if everyone was in happy, boring relationships? What would we do with all that time we could no longer spend agonizing over text messages or asking someone to semi?
Being single when you don’t want to be can suck, but it also means you’re free to do the things that you want to do, regardless of what anyone else thinks. Go shamelessly flirt with that cute guy from your computer science class. Wear PJs to a frat. Abstain from nightlife and watch all nine seasons of “Scrubs.”
So, single Dartmouth students, let’s all get off Friendsy and watch some violent, epic movie where no one falls in love. Romantic comedies are overrated. My parents also sent me Valentine’s Day candy, so feel free to hit me up.
