Valentine's Day is a commercial scam.

My other half and I did not celebrate our first Valentine's Day together because I simply did not want to join in the festivities of a marketing scam. I work in a jewellery store, selling diamonds and what not to bling thirsty women and their partners. When it comes to Valentine's Day, it gets a little crazy and Cupid comes out and drags people into these stores and they hand us our paycheques. (Thank you!)

But that's not the reason why I don't like Valentine's Day, the reason that I don't like it is because I don't see there being a need to have one particular day that your partner has to go out of their way to express their love. Why is that every man and woman has to rush out and purchase something for this one day? There are 365 days of the year you can come home with a gift to express love, why does it have to be the same day as everyone else? If you're so in love with someone, you should be expressing that everyday.

In my opinion, I think Valentine's Day spreads more pain than love simply because people make expectations out of the advertisements that they see on media platforms. When those expectations aren't met, they're ultimately disappointed. This is where the business always wins. Women nag and men must abide for a happy wife, girlfriend etc. In many cases, do these gifts really truly express love if society has set these expectations? Are you really getting a gift because you want to or because you have to?

I didn't want to follow these 'supposed' traditions because I felt that it was unfair on my man to feel the need to go out and buy expensive chocolates and roses just for the sake of one particular day. Maybe I'm just a low maintenance girlfriend? What's worse is now that social media is blooming, people take photos of their gifts and glamourise their day as if it it's some sort of competition to see who's more 'loved' through the value of their gifts. That was probably the only highlight of my day to see jealousy well up in people's comments. Free entertainment, why not?

Justifying for Love

I've come across a couple of individuals in my time who have made chaos just to confirm that the world loves them. It is such a shame that some are way passed high school and yet still manage to have this need to justify themselves.

Sometimes I wonder why people feel the need to pretend to be a particular way so that they fit in. I understand if they were under eighteen years of age--that's a prime time for adolescence to find themselves so they need to try on shoes to find the right fit.

There's this particular person that I know of who feels a greater need to be a part of every social outing recorded on Facebook. It ruins their day if they are not tagged in a status, a photo or what have you. Mind you, this person is in their twenties and I'm not saying that they should be mature because maturity does not come with age. Social media becomes meaningless and crying over not being included in a Facebook status is not going to make you any happier. Move on, find comfort in hobbies, stop crying and start including yourself, be the leader who makes events because they won't change for you.

I've always thought that by the time you've graduated from school within five years you would have experienced a disconnection from the way the world was build in the social kingdom of your teenage years. You lose friends, trust and confidence, it's a normal cycle.

Being an introvert, I lost the close connections I had with friends and I won't lie, it tore me. But with pain, comes life lessons. I spent the first year of university accepting that I would never have a social haven where I would 'fit' in because I was that one kid you either loved or hated for whatever reason. I am so socially awkward, I sometimes find myself slowly backing away from conversations, looking at my phone to avoid the silence, refreshing Facebook and Instagram a hundred times hoping for a way out.

What I learnt has been something I've been trying to get people to understand. You get to a stage in life where you learn who your true friends are and even though they're your friends, they're not always going to be there. Adulthood finds its way to you and people begin to find their soul mates and life long partners and you don't become their first priority anymore. Soon enough, your friends will have families and you have no choice but to do the same or find comfort elsewhere. It's inevitable and that's how life works.

Stop justifying yourself for love, accept who you are and the right people will begin to love you. Be confident and the best of you will shine through.