Now, I’m not here to yuck your yum or to bang on about the commodification of the most basic and necessary of human emotions.
But, what I will say is that, just like Christmas and New Year, Valentine’s Day is a difficult time for a lot of people. And it seems unfair that we are only just over the hump of January, one of the most difficult months of the year for most of us.
Now, I personally have no issues with Valentine’s Day. I don’t love it, and I don’t hate it. I’m ambivalent to it. I’m genuinely happy in my single life. My work, my purpose, my friendships fill me up.
So for me, I barely notice the shimmering hearts hanging in shop windows, the extra cacophony of flowers spilling from buckets, the lashings of extra chocolates cascading from the shop shelves…
…ok, maybe I do notice them, aha! But they don’t particularly make me feel much.
But for many gay men, it can activate the sense of loneliness and emptiness that many have been conditioned to feel for not ‘succeeding’ in love. Being in a relationship has been spoon-fed to us as the epitome of winning at life. The ultimate achievement. The thing that signals you’ve made it.
Except for many of us, that simply isn’t true.
In her groundbreaking book Single at Heart, psychologist Bella DePaulo writes:
“… research shows that over a ten-year study of more than seventeen thousand people without romantic partners, the people who were not looking to un-single themselves were becoming happier and happier with their lives, while those who were pining for a partner were becoming increasingly dissatisfied”
Read that again…
People who wanted to be single grew happier over time. The people who felt they should want a partner got more miserable.
And for some, Valentine’s Day only reinforces the sense that we should want or need a partner.
The Anti-Valentine’s Day Movement
There are plenty of anti-Valentine’s Day movements out there, including Galentine’s Day (celebrating female friendships on February 13th), Palentine’s Day (the gender-neutral version for celebrating your mates), and Singles Awareness Day, or SAD for short (ironically falling on February 15th).
And whilst I love the intention behind these movements, which create space for people to feel less alone or left out, they still feel a bit reactive, somehow.
Almost as if we’re defining ourselves in opposition to something rather than standing for what we actually value. It’s Valentine’s Day for people who don’t have a Valentine.
And that still centres romantic love as the thing we’re all measuring ourselves against, even if we’re pretending we’re not…
The Valentines+ Day Movement
What if, instead of playing the “this not that” game, we just celebrated all of it?
Romantic love, yes! But also friendship, chosen family, soul-family, love of music, love of dance, love of nature and love of being fully, unapologetically ourselves, and most importantly, self-love and love of our gayness!
A day of recognition, not as consolation prizes for people who don’t have a partner, but as equally valid, equally valuable forms of love that deserve to be celebrated.
That’s why I’m hosting the “Pleasure Medicine Valentine’s Special: Celebrating All Forms of Love… OUR WAY” for gay men – whether you’re coupled up, happily single, somewhere in between, or simply in love with your own aliveness.
It’s a connection workshop and ecstatic daytime dance where we will explore what love actually means to each of us, where we want and need more of it in our lives, and where we already have it but don’t always realise it.
And we’ll feel it in the room through connection games, music and dance with a live DJ set, cacao ceremony, a Fembot Oracle Journey and a divine sound bath at the end.
Love is everywhere in the way we show up for our mates, in the way we hold ourselves with kindness, in the way we lose ourselves on a dance floor.
My events are all about kindness, connection, community and kindred spirits. And this Valentine’s, we’re celebrating all forms of love, together.
Hope to see you there!
Love Gary x
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About Gary
Gary Albert is a therapist, somatic sex coach and the creator of Pleasure Medicine, a connection workshop and ecstatic dance for gay men in London. He writes about connection, identity and what it actually means to thrive as a gay man — always from the perspective of being in the waters with the reader, trying to work it all out together.
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