Love is dead: Chapman singles talk Valentine’s Day
As Valentine’s Day approaches, The Panther spoke to single Chapman Students about experiencing FOMO, the bombardment of couples’ content across social media and learning how to be with yourself. Illustration by YANA SAMOYLOVA, Illustrator
Valentine's Day is all fun and games until you are the only single person in your friend group sitting in your bed at night, binge-eating Ghirardelli chocolates from the Target sale section and crying about being alone while rewatching “10 Things I Hate About You.” Rituals for Chapman singles take all shapes and forms — some choose the former, while some choose not to expend the energy in being sad at all.
“I usually don’t feel particularly sad (being single) on Valentine’s Day because I feel like if I am sad, then I’ll be sad on any other day,” said junior creative producing major Diego Diaz.
Although the origins of Valentine's Day are pretty vague — with some stories tracing the holiday back to wedding officiant Saint Valentine of Terni, the Roman feast of Lupercalica and William Shakespeare — there is one thing we know for certain. Feb. 14 is the one day a year when single people have always felt the most ostracized.
Ximena Escobar, a junior film production major, doesn’t experience sadness as a single person on Valentine’s Day, but another feeling entirely.
“It's kind of like you have some sort of FOMO (fear of missing out) because you’re not in a relationship,” Escobar said. “Everyone is bombarding you with all this information about how awesome their relationship is, and then you’re like, ‘Oh, I’ve never been in one.’”
Diaz added that on top of the FOMO caused by scrolling sessions through social media, the surge of couples' content can create a feeling of anxiety.
“I think it definitely adds a clock-like pressure that you have to get what they have as well. The more you log into Instagram, the more you are going to feel this internal question like, ‘Oh, I actually need to go find somebody to date right now because everyone else is doing it.’ You kind of want to fit in. Everyone wants to fit in.”
When originally searching for sources for this article, The Panther posted anonymously on Fizz, asking if there were any Chapman singles who would like to be interviewed for this piece. Someone ReFizzed (the app’s version of a Retweet) the post, saying, “Hey, you want to tell the entire university you are a loser? Hit me up!”
It got two thousand upvotes.
Renata Spinelli, a junior biology major, helped interpret why so many students are in agreement that speaking out about being single makes you a “loser.”
“I think for a lot of people, being in a relationship — they expect it to be a big part of college, the way the movies and shows are,” Spinelli said. “I think it all falls into the same category where expectations are not really where they should be necessarily with relationships, and I guess it can just kind of be people projecting insecurities.”
Renata Spinelli, a junior biology major, doesn't necessarily believe that Valentine’s Day needs to be a day about couples. She says Feb. 14 should be a day to reflect on the people you love in your life, reach out and tell them that you care about them. She believes it can be friends, family or really anyone.
“I think (single people) are kind of made to feel sad just by the way that things are marketed and everything is advertised,” Spinelli told The Panther. “‘Give your Valentine this candy, give these flowers!’ It’s very couple-oriented.”
Although dating is almost always a strenuous prospect, students expressed an additional layer of difficulty dating at a small school like Chapman.
“It still feels like high school in some aspect because you’ll walk around and you’ll see people you know,” Diaz said. “Beyond being single, there is the weird idea of being in a situationship with someone where you’re not dating someone, but you kind of have a thing with them, but you don’t. So people don’t want to out themselves, I guess, as being like fully single.”
One anonymous student added that dating as a queer person in Orange leaves them with even more limited opportunities. The student requested anonymity in order to keep their relationship status private.
“Being gay and under 21, I feel like there are little to zero opportunities to socialize and see the dating scene out there,” the student told The Panther. “Although I am on dating apps, they are wildly disappointing, and I am definitely a person who has a hard time connecting over text. Honestly, it feels like I’m stuck at a standstill, and I’m just like, ‘Where can I find other lesbians?!’”
It may be hard for Chapman singles to avoid the surge of Valentine’s Day-related posts from couples on the internet, but Escobar encourages everyone to think about the bigger picture.
“You don’t necessarily think about all the bad things when you look at someone’s relationship. When you see that on the internet, it’s easy to think their life is so awesome, that they have someone that loves them. It’s easier to have lower self-esteem, especially on those days if you are thinking about it a lot, to feel like you are not enough for someone. But there are different types of love, right?”
Escobar left singles with a word of encouragement this Valentine’s Day.
“There is a lot of beauty in this world,” Escobar said. Not everything’s about being in a relationship, as awesome as it is and as great as it seems to be. There’s more to it. Even if you aren’t in a relationship, you still have to learn how to be friends with yourself and enjoy your own solitude. It's for your own sake.”