Valentine’s Day- it’s a day for lust, love, romance, whatever may suit your fancy. It’s a day where couples show how much they care for each other. If you’ve found yourself single, this special day can be hard, especially for teenage girls.
Girls tend to already have self-esteem and body issues already, but seeing friends and peers pairing off can cause self-esteem to plummet. But is Valentine’s Day really a day where it’s acceptable for girls to throw themselves pity parties? Or is there more potential in this day to embrace who we are and embrace our flaws?
“How can you expect someone to love you, if you don’t even love yourself?” Deep right? I can’t tell you how often I hear this phrase whether it’s in movies, TV shows, books, advice given to me, advice given by me, etc. Sometimes hearing it makes me want to scream. It sounds simple right? If you love yourself then people will love you. But what if you don’t love yourself? What if it’s a love-hate relationship? Or what if there is no love at all? In my experience, the female population has the biggest problem with is their body.
In the words of Cady Haring from Mean Girls: “I used to think there was just fat and skinny. But apparently there’s lots of things that can be wrong on your body”. We have huge hips, man shoulders, weird hairlines, huge pores, bad nail beds, just to name a few. In fact, in a recent study done, 78% of American girls were “unhappy with their bodies” by age 17 (National Institute on Media and the Family).
When girls already have these body image issues and happen to be single, naturally we start to think that it’s because of what we look like that is the cause of this problem. Then cue Valentine’s Day, where images of couples in love hit you as hard as a big yellow school bus.
The female population is bombarded with commercials, magazine articles, and store displays all promoting the idea that this day is a special day just for couples. We have friends who want our opinions on what they should do for their special someone. Naturally all these constant reminders make us want to curl up on the couch watching rom-coms or sappy romances with the two men who will always be there for us: Ben and Jerry.
But, as comforting as this may sound, enough is enough! It’s time to break this funk that so many of us find ourselves in every year. Valentine’s Day is a day of love where it just so happens that the love between two people is emphasized. While there is a “couples only” stigma, the day can be spent telling anyone you care about how much they mean to you- whether it be your family, friends, significant other, or even yourself.