Heart Notes
Valentine's Day and the season of like.
Happy Valentine’s Day to anyone reading. I hope your day is filled with love, romantic or otherwise. Disclaimer: don’t be fooled this post is not about fragrance even though I used fragrance language in the title. I just like fragrance and thought it worked for Valentine’s Day.
This Valentine’s Day is my second one with my partner, Sam. The word “partner” used to seem silly to me unless you were ambiguously gay or ambiguously married/engaged, but then I grew up and “boyfriend” started to feel unappealing. I still use the term in person, especially around more conservative people, but in writing the term “boyfriend” sounds juvenile. “Boyfriend” also has something of a negative connotation to women; women complain about their boyfriends but never about their partners. It’s hard to be mad at someone you’re purposefully using progressive language for. I like to think of partner as an upgrade.
I’ve always loved Valentine’s Day. I don’t care that it’s a “fake” holiday made to sell cards. Pink and red is a cute color combination. Chocolate is yummy. I still love those low effort cute Tumblr-esque e-cards. It’s pretty low stakes, you can go all out with gifts if you want to, but there’s not a huge societal push to. My parents also always get me stuff for Valentine’s Day which I honestly look forward to most. One year they didn’t and I was so upset that I considered breaking up with my boyfriend at the time so they would be obligated to get me something.
Valentine’s Day has been exciting to me recently because I have a partner and we both really like being around each other. To clarify, we love each other too, but it’s also important to like the person you’re dating. If you can’t tell if you like each other, ask yourself two questions: am I happy to do things for my partner? Are they happy to do things for me? Having consideration for the person you love should not feel like a chore.
I share this tweet for two reasons:
One of my friends recited it back to me in real life, telling me it was a lovely way to talk about my relationship.
For the first like 10 months of my relationship a good amount of my friends didn’t know I was dating anybody and the only way they found out was from Twitter.
I am thankful for someone who will take me to the beach. I am also thankful that Sam is easy-going. Admittedly, it’s a little messed up that a lot of my friends just didn’t know about him, but in my defense, it was only long-distance/online friends and I wasn’t keeping him a secret. IRL friends have been able to confirm his existence since the beginning. I confessed to him that he was an enigma for a while and he was very cool about it. Maybe it’s not morally wrong to date or be an enigma.
Sam is one of the most kind, patient, and encouraging people I’ve ever met. I would say he’s too good for me if I had no self respect, but Sam loves me only slightly less than I love myself. We’re very opposite in a lot of ways, he’s an introvert and I’m an extrovert, he’s constantly under-stimulated and I’m easily overstimulated, he’s purposefully nice to everyone and I’m accidentally mean to everyone. We’re like yin and yang.
Romance is always tricky to write or talk about, especially pertaining to myself. I never want to spoil something good or be filled with regret years later because I thought nothing bad could possibly happen. At this moment though, I can say I’m happy.
If you’re feeling romantic, here are some Valentine’s recommendations:
Film
Moonstruck (duh)
Music
Love Deluxe and Lovers Rock by Sade
Thee Sacred Souls (Self Titled)
he sounds like a good catch!
Omg love the movie recs! Never heard of that first one, ill have to try it ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)