Don't Worry, Other Singles Hate This Time Of Year Too

Hallmark can suck it! So can this day of the year! On this, the most hated of Hallmark Holidays, we're all reminded of that one fatal shortcoming. We're single on Valentine's Day, again!

Why Must We Singles Endure Valentine's Day

Whichever saint the holiday memorializes, it is generally agreed upon that he was kind, heroic, and most importantly pro-love. Like we're not. Everybody that is a healthy, even semi-stable, individual is pro-love. Not everybody, however, finds love. 

There's been a steady rise in single people over the past three decades. That rise has been driven by a three-decade decline in marriage. The share of adults ages 25–54 who are married dropped from two-thirds in 1990 to just over half in 2019. The share of people who have never married grew from 17% to 33% in the same time frame. So, more and more people, aren't finding their, pardon the expression, soul mates.

Reasons for people not becoming a part of the married culture, or remaining single, are plentiful. They range from economics to preference. Deep down, nobody wants to spend the rest of their lives alone, so preference is a pretty questionable excuse.

Those that indicate they prefer to stay single are likely hiding from something. Perhaps it's fear of commitment. It may even be from trauma that left them with a mistrust of the opposite sex. It isn't how humankind was designed. We aren't meant to stay single for lengthy amounts of time and there is the instinctive need for human contact that drives us to hunt for a mate. 

One way or another, more and more people are staying single.

Losing Faith In Love

How many people still have faith in old-school values or classic examples of love? It may just be my opinion, but the number is decreasing exponentially from year to year. 

For too long, we have treated one another as mere passing ships in the night. Men and women both are using each other for that temporary fix, the sexual release, and to fill the need for human contact. Things like commitment and marriage once meant something. Now, they are sliding into the minority consideration when it comes to the relationship construct, only to be replaced by other interests.

People change, and society changes, but things feel like they got lost somewhere along the way. Perhaps it's karma coming around to haunt us for years of acting like spoiled, self-indulgent, little beasts as we went around indiscriminately humping and screwing our way through life. When you think about it, were any of the people you've known that fit that description raised to be that way?

Losing Faith In Marriage

Things have fallen so far in society that faith in the idea of marriage seems to be a bi-product of a forgotten age. People are so self-indulgent that they can't stop saying I Do to other people after they say I Do to their spouse. Infidelity, in most cases, ends a marriage. 

I know many women that swear they've been cheated on far too many times to have faith in a guy's ability to remain in a monogamous relationship. Yes, that's probably part of the problem. But, women have become no better than guys.

If the ability to go out and sleep around is one of the ideas behind women's rights, then so be it. But, don't expect that it's going to end well for romance or not going to end you up alone in your older years. I came from two generations of married people that did the whole, "Until death do us part." There's something inherently noble about that.

Are Life's Struggle Too Much

Maybe it's the time we live in. Life has become harder and harder over the last three decades that I've been an adult. If life's struggles are proving too much for the relationship model of romance in the current era, then what's the next generation going to be like. 

Maybe the next generation will experience a renaissance of sorts when it comes to relationships. Maybe they'll hold onto the dream of finding someone that truly loves them and wants to share a life. That, of course, will be up to the current generation to assure it's possible.

If the current age bracket of 25 to 54-year-olds doesn't teach the next generation, then things will progressively get worse. Eventually, relationships will become a thing of the past and the only purpose of interacting will be for recreation or reproducing the species. If that happens, in just a few generations, the species will begin to stop sustaining itself and the world population will begin to dwindle.

Why We Singles Must Endure Valentines Day

Single people must continue to endure Valentine's Day for the simple reason that if we don't endure it, how can we ever celebrate the dreaded day. 

Every year, lately before the after Christmas sales are over, we're bombarded with big hearts, balloons, flowers, romantic comedies, jewelry story commercials, and all things romantic. Every year, we singles have to choke on the overwhelming scents of chocolates, the gift ideas that we'll never buy, and the stuffed animals we'll never give to anyone. Every year single people feel that pull at their heartstrings, thinking maybe this year. 

We must endure the pain of Hallmark Holidays that don't apply to our lives because there's the tiniest of hope that it'll be the last one that we're alone for. With every year, there are millions of single people out there. If you think that you're the only one feeling the pangs of being single, or not having found that perfect someone to share the rest of your life with, then you're mistaken. So, we must endure because with every new year comes new possibilities, new chapters to our lives, and the chance of new love. 

Yes, it also means there's the chance to either fuck something special up in your life, or the chance that you'll get hurt. In this case, there remain no guarantees. So try, or don't. It's up to the individual depending on how they want to spend their lives.

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