I wake up with a start from my eternal nightmare. The nightmare that haunts me every year on the 14th of February. I won’t describe the dream, partially because I am apathetic and partially because the horrid dream chills me to the bone. As I sit up with my heart racing, I feel the dread for this “holiday” coursing through my veins. However, this dread is not unfamiliar to me – it is an eighteen-year-old curse. Once the feeling settles firmly in my gut, I decide that going to school and attempting to receive a proper education on such a simple-minded holiday is worth an attempt.

After I get ready for the day, I head to school. I am aware of the sappiness I will have to endure, but I have learned to tolerate this. I walk towards my first class while bobbing and weaving between people carrying cheap bouquets and chocolates from the 99 Cents store. I do not carry such trivial items for somebody, nor does somebody carry such trivial items for me. I may be alone, but at least I am not contributing to the immiseration of the proletariat by buying such bourgeois items. I believe that Karl Marx would be proud of my silent protest.

I walk into my first period class and encounter a high amount of the “Valentine spirit.” I do not allow myself to feel this spirit, which I so despise. I do not conform to the convictions instilled into the weak-minded by the teachers of the youth, and I will not conform to these “feelings” imposed on the young mind. The authority must think that we are all brainwashed into submission, destined to buy pseudo-lavish items on the 14th of every February.

Nay, not I. I am one of the few who stand strong against this holiday in protest. This thought races through my mind during my second period of the day, as I am forced to sit through yet another singing gram sent by some lost soul. I am bound to my chair, with my eyelids barely held open as I watch somebody sing a profession of love as an indirect message from another high school student. Oh, the “love” that high schoolers are so accustomed to experiencing at a juvenile age.    

Throughout most of the day, I am subjected to this pure torture. Others give each other candy, balloons, and even public displays of affection. Yet, it is all superficial. Such a holiday is designed to create class division. If one buys their “significant other” a smaller teddy bear than their friend, they are automatically designated peasant status. Those who do not buy the most expensive gifts such as Ferrero Rocher chocolates or five-foot tall stuffed animals are subjected to a metaphorical gulag by their romantic partner.

For this reason, I object to this status-determinant holiday. As my day winds down to a close, I drive home defeated. I feel my anxiety leaving me, and so I accept the absurdity to which everybody in the universe is subjected. Perhaps it is my existentialist complex, but I not draw meaning from a holiday designed by corporate shills. I stand alone, but I still have a firm grasp of my own social status. I “voluntarily” remain forever alone.