She (Valentine’s Day) comes to us in the wake of December 11th, the unofficial “National Breakup Day” at the peak of holiday stress and seasonal gloom. If your ethical, non-ethical, anchored, unmoored, undefined, parasocial, or mostly daydreamt relationship somehow made it through to the new year, congratulations! But if there’s one thing consistent about single lesbians and dyke-identifying individuals, it’s that we carry no shortage of evolving attachments — unless we’re U-Hauling, in which case, godspeed, and don’t spend more than $200 on them (adjusted for inflation).
I am here to tell you, dear dykey readers: If you’re single, it is okay for your situationship to be your Valentine. In fact, they should be your Valentine. They can all be your Valentines! Time to heal the inner child who passed out the local pharmacy’s finest cards to every crush in class. You could fall in love… or you could just be in an early stage of dating with a pessimistic nickname because it’s 2024. Stranger things have happened.
What is a situationship, you ask?
Situationships are messy and fun, even if difficult to define. They know more about your life than a date and you’ve probably seen where they live, but they don’t know your middle name. You’ve been hooking up for an amount of time you haven’t kept track of, and in that time you haven’t put a label on it. They may live in a different neighborhood, borough, country, astral plane, but that doesn’t stop you from calling them anything but your partner. And instead of adding adjectives or modifiers before and in between “person” and “dating” we have synthesized this universally experienced mess into “the situationship.”
You may end up accidentally meeting someone’s dad in an apartment lobby. You may substantiate a long distance situationship younger than your frozen compost. You might fly from New York to London for Valentine’s Day with a girl who just moved there (which would be in fact the second time you crossed the Atlantic on February 13 for a relative stranger). You could develop feelings for your ex’s ex’s ex. You will probably find a pair of their underwear in your laundry long after they stop being the person you think about when you self-service.
All this, hypothetically speaking of course, makes Valentine’s Day the perfect day to celebrate the ephemeral, the sexual, the situational. Get yourself something lacy you can ceremonially burn when they break your heart. Give your hot barista a handmade card. Go wild and make a plan with your crush over a week in advance.
On the unique and nuanced plights of dyke relationships…
You will not curse your situationship by asking them to be your Valentine. If your situationship does not embrace the camp that is Valentine’s Day, then they might have trauma around it, which is always valid. More likely, they’ll be avoidant and use their sense of humor to mask true feelings. If your sweet gesture sends them running to the woods (metaphorically and literally), then you probably want different things. But this isn’t a reason to shy away from celebrating people who could be cherished guest stars in the story of your life.
All too often, single people — and by single, I mean unmarried and/or unestablished in a polycule — don’t celebrate their entanglements because we’re told things aren’t worth celebrating until they’re official. We are indoctrinated with the belief that relationships are rare. That someone wanting to fuck you more than once is a precious thing. (It isn’t. If you’re reading this, you’re hot.) With any scarcity mindset comes superstition, along with etiquette for soft launching, hard launching, and digitally phasing someone out of your life to leave doors open and mutuals unscathed. I think this is stupid. Let yourself feel excited about something for once.
Now feels like a good time to acknowledge the unique devastation of lesbian breakups. We all have walls because of them. That thing that lasted no longer than two months and ended four years ago still hurts. To this I say, take Valentine’s Day back. Let it have the same chaos gay Halloween does. You deserve a day where you giggle and kick your feet and listen to ‘Sure Thing’ by Miguel without a hint of irony. Use it to flood yourself with dopamine and the thing you so desperately seek from new love without the commitment of new love: the eroticism of surprise and delight. (Thank you, Esther Perel.)
How single dykes can reclaim Valentine’s for themselves.
Two years ago, I went to Applebee’s on Valentine’s Day for a second date with a comedian. I won the Applebee’s gift card at the aforementioned comedian’s show, where we went on our first date in front of a live audience. It was the hotly contested prize for best date. The comedian and I left Applebees feeling so ill from our $6 Smoocho Mucho Sips Bowls that I had to contact my GI the following day to see if I was dying, or if I had just been stupid. I’m still on the medication she prescribed me as a result. This is a metaphor, I think.
Anyway, it turned out the comedian low key had a girlfriend for months, so there was no third date. But I had a fantastic time because we didn’t take it too seriously and forged an emotional bond through TUMs. It’s up there as one of my best Valentine’s Days.
Of course, it helps to be playful with people who aren’t assholes, or substantially more into you than you are into them. The best flings need to be in on the joke. If you’re long term relationship-oriented, chances are you’ll spend more Valentine’s Days with someone you know instead of someone new. But TikTok taught some of us that a crush could be considered a lack of information, and that’s the beauty of a situationship — they can still surprise you.
You don’t know their habits, or the spots they take a date to impress them, and they haven’t seen all of your good underwear yet. It’s new to them, and they’re new to you, even if the likelihood that you both share a hairdresser is high. All the more reason to celebrate connection within what feels like an impossibly small dating pool, for however long it lasts.
And please, don’t text your ex. Have some dignity and at least wait until their birthday.